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THE MEMOIRS 

OF THE 

LIFE OF EDWARD GIBBON 



THE MEMOIRS 

OF 

THE LIFE OF 
EDWARD GIBBON 

n 

WITH VARIOUS OBSERVATIONS AND EXCURSIONS 

BY HIMSELF 

EDITED BY 

GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L., LL.D. 

) 

HONORARY FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD 



New York : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

London: METHUEN & CO. 

1900 



1 u^ 



PREFACE 

If, as Johnson said, there had been only three books 
" written by man that were wished longer by their readers," 
the eighteenth century was not to draw to its close with- 
out seeing a fourth added. With Don Quixote, The 
'Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe, the Autohio- 
grapJiy of' Edward Gibbon was henceforth to rank as " a 
work whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, 
such as the traveller casts upon departing day". It is 
indeed so short that it can be read by the light of a single 
pair of candles; it is so interesting in its subject, and so 
alluring in its turns of thought and its style, that in a 
second and a third reading it gives scarcely less pleasure 
than in the first. Among the books in which men have 
told the story of their own lives it stands in the front 
rank. It is a striking fact that one of the first of autobio- 
graphies and the first of biographies were written in the 
same years. Boswell was still working at his Life of 
Johnson when Gibbon began those memoirs from which 
his autobiography, in the form in which it was given to 
the world, was so skilfully pieced together. But a short 
time had gone by since Johnson had said that " he did 
not think that the life of any literary man in England had 
been well written ". That reproach against our writers he 
himself did much to lessen by his Lives of Cowley and of 
Milton, of Dryden and of Pope. It was finally removed 
by two members of that famous club which he had helped 
to found. However weak was the end of the eighteenth 



vi PREFACE 

century in works of imagination, in one great branch of 
literature it faded nobly away. Both in the L%fe of 
Johnson and in the Autobiography of Edward Gibbon, 
it " left something so written to after- times as they should 
not willingly let it die". Another hundred years have 
gone by. Many Englishmen since then have written their 
lives ; of many Englishmen the lives have been written by 
others. Each of these books, in its own class, still remains 
without a rival. Of each of them it may still be said : 
" Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere ". 

Admirable as is Gibbon's Autobiography in its present 
form, we cannot help speculating on the perfection which 
it might have attained had it been completed by the 
hands of the author. He was an accomplished artist, who 
both knew how to plan a stately temple, and how to give 
to every corner its utmost polish. Though he left his 
work imperfect, happily we have little need to exclaim with 
the poet : — 

Ah, who can raise that wand of magic power, 

Or the lost clue regain ? 
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower 

Unfinished must remain. 

The six sketches of his life which he left, covering as 
they more or less did every part of it, excepting a year or two 
at the close, were in each one of these divisions so highly 
wrought that by a skilful editor they could be dovetailed 
into a single work which should show few traces of incom- 
pleteness. Judicious selection was what was most needed, 
for Gibbon in his different sketches often travelled over 
the same ground. In the main part of his task there 
seems nothing wanting. "The review of my moral and 
literary character," he wrote, "is the most interesting to 
myself and to the public." That review he left so nearly 
perfect that even he could have improved it but little. 



PREFACE vu 

Of the real merit of the autobiography his first editor, 
Lord Sheffield, shows an ignorance that seems strange 
indeed when we remember the skill with which he dis- 
charged his task. " It is to be lamented," he writes, " that 
all the sketches of the memoirs, except that composed in 
the form of annals, cease about twenty years before Mr. 
Gibbon's death ; and consequently that we have the least 
detailed account of the most interesting part of his life." 
His lordship was misled by life's outward show and pomp. 
It was Gibbon in the splendour of his success, in the full 
blaze of the world, and not in the long and obscure stages 
of his growth that he wished to see portrayed. He loved 
to see his friend a member of Parliament and of the 
ministry, a writer of state papers, the companion of the 
most distinguished men at home or abroad, and basking in 
the warmth of his great reputation. This to him was the 
most interesting part of that unexampled life — this, which 
the great historian had in common with troops of famous 
men. 

We may regret that Gibbon, when he had written his 
life, did not think it right " to amuse the reader with a 
gallery of portraits and a collection of anecdotes ". To do 
so, as he tells us, " was most assuredly in his power ". 
Admirable as they would have been in themselves, added 
to his autobiography, they would have lessened its perfec- 
tion as a whole. Bos well boasts with justice that, in his 
Life of Johnson, "amidst a thousand entertaining and 
instructive episodes, the hero is never long out of sight ". 
Scarcely for a single moment do we lose sight of the hero 
of the autobiography. It is the life of the author of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and his life alone, 
that we read from the first page to the last. If he opens 
his narrative with John Gibbon, the Marmorarius of King 
Edward III., it is still his own life that, in a certain sense, 



viii PREFACE 

he is describing, for "we seemed to have lived in the 
persons of our forefathers ". That " ideal longevity " of 
the past belongs to him as much as the " ideal longevity " 
of the future, when "his mind will be familiar to the 
grandchildren of those who are yet unborn ". If he de- 
scribes his maiden aunt, and her great struggles against 
adversity, she it was whom he gratefully acknowledged as 
" the true mother of his mind ". If he dwells at length on 
the fourteen months he spent at Oxford, and on the five 
years he spent "on the banks of the Leman Lake," it was "to 
the fortunate banishment which placed him at Lausanne 
that the fruits of his education must be ascribed *". His 
service in the militia could not be passed over in a brief 
paragraph, for however much " the reader may smile, the 
captain of the Hampshire Grenadiers has not been useless 
to the historian of the Roman Empire ". The seat he 
held for some years in the House of Commons was worthy 
of notice, for there he found a " school of civil prudence, 
the first and most essential virtue of an historian ". 

With the publication of the last volume of his history 
he felt his public life was complete. For himself, indeed, 
there still remained, he fondly hoped, a long "autumnal 
felicity," happier by far than his boyhood and his youth, 
happier, perhaps, even than those "twenty happy years, 
animated by the labours of his history," to which he owed 
that consciousness of high merit and that great fame 
which were the very breath of his nostrils. Of this part 
of his life the outside world need know nothing. He had 
shown them how a great historian was made. How he 
rested when once his long day's work was done, how he 
enjoyed himself, with what great men he lived, what he 
heard among them and what he saw — however interesting 
all this might be in itself, it formed no chapter in " the 
review of his moral aud literary character ". It is this 



PEEFACE ix 

self-restraint of the consummate artist, this wise reticence 
that gives us an almost perfect picture of a great scholar in 
a work that can easily be read through at a single sitting. 
Mark Pattison joins Gibbon with Milton as two men 
" who are indulged without challenge in talk about them- 
selves"". In each "the gratification of self-love, which 
attends all autobiography, is felt to be subordinated to a 
nobler end "". " It is his office," as poet or historian, " and 
not himself, which he magnifies." He who had written 
the Decline mid Fall had a right to tell the world how 
he had been prepared for his great task. He was, it is 
true, a vain man, foolishly vain in the opinion he enter- 
tained of his ridiculous person, but of this kind of vanity 
there are few traces to be discovered in his autobiography. 
There is pride enough, unveiled consciousness of high 
desert, "a lofty and steady confidence in himself'. This 
is not indeed displayed with Milton's noble and severe 
dignity. It is the pride of a great man who has worn a 
periwig all his life. If now and then we smile at the 
manner in which it is set forth, nevertheless we admit his 
claim. 

" Sume superbiam 
Quaesitam meritis." 

We the more readily forgive his pride from the pleasure 
we take in readine his account of the formation of the 
strong character by which it was justified. There is a 
strange remark of Lowell's, where, speaking of "that 
element of manhood which, for want of a better name, 
we call character,"" he continues : " It is something dis- 
tinct from genius, though all great geniuses are endowed 
with it. Hence we always think of Dante Alighieri, of 
Michael Angelo, of Will. Shakespeare, of John Milton, 
while of such men as Gibbon and Hume we merely recall 
the works, and think of them as the author of this and 



X PREFACE 

that." That a man of letters, such as Lowell, should 
have said this of Hume surprises me, for " that fattest of 
Epicurus 's hogs,"" so Gibbon described him, however much 
in his latter days he courted ease and the good opinion of 
the world, nevertheless even then showed a curious and 
interesting character of his own. Of Gibbon it is absurdly 
beside the mark. For one reader who has read his Decline 
and Fall, there are at least a score who have read his 
autobiography, and who know him, not as the great his- 
torian, but as a man of a most original and interesting 
nature. There is no one like him. No wonder that his 
friends, both English and French, used to speak of him 
as " the Gibbon, le Gibbon "". He stands out, through the 
deepening mists of years, clear and strongly marked, with 
so many other members of the famous club, with Johnson, 
Goldsmith, Garrick, Reynolds and Boswell. 

Whether we like him is another question — love him we 
certainly do not. There were indeed one or two who 
loved him, whose love he had earned by the steadiness and 
the warmth of his friendship. He had, however, too much 
of the " rational voluptuary "" to be able to win our affec- 
tion. His self-indulgence we are the more inclined to 
despise, as in his later years it rendered his person ridicu- 
lous through its unwieldy corpulence. He had besides 
other and gi-eater failings. In a young man, in the full 
flow of his life, we are less ready to forgive untruthfulness 
than when we come across it in one who is stricken with the 
timidity of age. He was only twenty when he sent, through 
his father, the falsest message of affection to his unknown 
step-mother, whom he was, as he tells us, in reality dis- 
posed to hate as his own mother's rival. ^ Onilj a few years 
later, when he should have been still in the generous 
freshness of youth, he gave a friend that shameless advice 

^ Post, p. 113, n. 



PREFACE xi 

about love and married women which Lord Chesterfield 
gave in the calculating coldness of old age.^ In middle 
age, " at the beginning of the memorable contest between 
Great Britain and America," he took his seat in Parlia- 
ment. At such a time a man, deeply read as he was in 
the reverses of great empires, might well have been swayed 
by none but the loftiest of motives. When he looked 
back upon that " school of civil prudence," in which he 
had sat for eight sessions, where, by many a silent vote, he 
had supported those measures which gave his country the 
deepest wound she has ever suffered, he owned that in 
entering Parliament all his views had been bounded by 
the hope of the sinecure office which he at length attained 
at the Board of Trade.^ We are set against him moreover 
by the indecency of his writings, however much he " veiled 
it in the obscurity of a learned language". We might 
have found some excuse for a wantonness which sprang 
from strong passions ; but who can forgive " une obscenite 
erudite et froide " ? ^ 

To set off against these grievous faults there was that 
noble and unwearying industry which has given the world 
The HiMory of the Decline and Fall of the Romaii Empire. 
To this industry was added an accuracy which Porson pro- 
nounces to be scrupulous, and his latest editor, amazing. If 
he is sometimes unfair, if "his humanity never slumbers 
unless when women are ravished or the Christians perse- 
cuted," he does not intentionally alter or even suppress facts. 
Through fourteen long centuries spreads the track of his 
toilsome and accurate investigations. To him, too, might 
be applied in large, though not in full measure, that 
praise which he bestowed on Bayle : that " Nature had 
designed him to think as he pleased, and to speak as he 

1 Post, p. 153. 2 Post, p. 193, n. 

3 It is thus that Sainte-Beuve describes it. Post, p. 231, n. 



xii PREFACE 

thought". If at times he veiled his scepticism with an 
affectation of behef, part of the blame must be borne by 
the law of the land, which still held the threat of three 
years' imprisonment over anyone who, having been educated 
in the Christian religion should, by writing, deny it to be 
true. "Christianity," wrote Blackstone, "is part of the 
laws of England." Offences against it " are punishable by 
fine and imprisonment or other infamous corporal punish- 
ment". Many years after Gibbon's time men were im- 
prisoned for " profane scoffing at the Holy Scriptures," for 
doing rudely and avowedly what he had done politely and 
covertly. After the long war that he had waged against 
the stifling of truth by the Church of Rome, his fall was 
deep indeed, when, under the terror inspired by the 
French Revolution, he urged some Portuguese gentlemen 
not to give up, at such a crisis, the Inquisition. 

The publication that closely followed on the hundredth 
anniversary of his death of the six sketches from which the 
autobiography was compiled threw a most interesting 
light on the great historian's method of work. To Mr. 
John Murray — who by the purchase of the copyright, 
first made them public — every student of our literature is 
deeply indebted. To his enterprise, moreover, they owe 
the two volumes of correspondence, in which a large addi- 
tion was made to the letters of Gibbon already in print. 
Grateful acknowledgment also is due to Miss Jane H. 
Adeane, the editor of that charming book. The Girlhood 
of Maria Josepha Holroyd, where we see our hero in 
that pleasant mansion which he spoke of as his English 
home, and also in that other home which he had above 
the banks of the Leman Lake, whose "prospect was 
crowned by the stupendous mountains of Savoy". 

Important as was the publication of these sketches, it 
had not the full importance assigned to it by the present 



PEEFACE xiii 

Earl of Sheffield in his introduction to the volume. The 
blunder into which he has fallen is strange indeed. John- 
son, I am aware, "was of opinion, that when a man of 
rank appeared in the character of a candidate for literary 
fame, he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed ". 
I might, therefore, perhaps have concealed my astonish- 
ment at his lordship's mistake had he not been counten- 
anced in it by Mr. Frederic Hari'ison, to whom he 
acknowledges his " obligation for assistance in the prepara- 
tion and composition of this preface". They are both, 
therefore, equally responsible for the following statement : 
"A piece, most elaborately composed by one of the 
greatest writers who ever used our language, an autobio- 
graphy often pronounced to be the best we possess, is now 
proved to be in no sense the simple work of that illustrious 
pen, but to have been dexterously pieced together out of 
seven fragmentary sketches and adapted into a single and 
coherent narrative ". All this should have been known to 
everyone who had read the autobiography with any care, 
for so much as that the first Lord Sheffield tells in a 
note on the first page. "This passage," he writes, "is 
found in one only of the six sketches, and in that which 
seems to have been the first written." ^ In the preface he 
shows how his part of the work was done. " Although," 
he writes, " I have in some measure newly arranged those 
interesting papers by forming one regular narrative from 
the six different sketches, I have nevertheless adhered with 
scrupulous fidelity to the very words of their author." 
When nearly twenty years later on he brought out a 
second edition, he recalled the fact that it was " from six 
different sketches, and from notes and memoranda, that the 
memoirs were composed and formed ". 

1 What the latest editors describe as the seventh sketch he included among 
" loose unconnected papers and cards all in Mr. Gibbon's handwriting". 



xiv PREFACE 

There was no need to exaggerate the importance of 
the publication of these different sketches. If we did not 
learn for the first time that the autobiography was the 
work of two hands, we were at all events admitted into 
the very workshop, as it were, of one of our great writers. 
There was, moreover, opened to us for the first time many 
a striking passage that had been suppressed by Lord 
Sheffield. The new work, with all its authenticity and 
all its additions, can never supplant, however, the compila- 
tion which has been the delight of many generations of 
readers. Every student of English literature will have it 
on his shelves; in every library that is worthy of the 
name it will have a place ; but it is the autobiography as 
it has been known to the world for more than a hundred 
years that we shall read by the fireside. 

Lord Sheffield went beyond the strict truth in asserting 
that he had " adhered with scrupulous fidelity to the very 
words of the author ". The changes that he made were by 
no means few. None was more daring than the emenda- 
tion by which he redeemed the character for gentility of 
the Lausanne boarding-house where he and the historian 
first met. " The boarders," wrote Gibbon, " were numer- 
ous." " Numerous " offended his lordship's dignity. In his 
revised version we read that " the boarders were select "} 
Some changes he made for propriety's sake. Thus Gibbon, 
after telling us how his grandfather, "at a mature age, 
erected the edifice of a new fortune," continued : " I have 
reason to believe that the second temple was not much 
inferior to the first ". Temple was changed into struc- 
ture,^ and the train of thought that would have been 
raised by the allusion was lost. In the account of his 
" elopements " from Magdalen College, he wrote ; " I was 



1 Post, p. 156 ; Autobiography, p. 208. 
? Post^ p. 20 ; Auto., p. 16. 



PREFACE XV 

too young and bashful to enjoy, like a manly Oxonian in 
town, the taverns and bagnios of Convent Garden ". The 
last part of the sentence was veiled by the editor under 
the " pleasures of London "} Some of the changes were 
made to lessen the authors display of his own merits, and 
some to moderate his swelling language. Of his sacrifices 
in relieving his father from the pressure of debt he wrote : 
"Under these painful circumstances my own behaviour 
was not only guiltless but meritorious. Without stipulat- 
ing any personal advantages, I consented, at a mature 
and well-informed age, to an additional mortgage," etc. 
Under the editor's ruthless pruning-knife the luxuriance of 
these words was cut down to the following bare state- 
ment : "Under these painful circumstances I consented to 
an additional mortgage".^ Neither was Gibbon allowed, 
in his later years, "to applaud as easy and happy" his 
youthful emendation of a passage in Latin. It was enough 
for the world to know that it was adopted by the learned 
editor of Livy.^ In these last two instances there is 
nothing more than omissions ; in the following we have an 
example of the editor's simplification of his friend's exuber- 
ant style. In the autobiography, as it was given to the 
world, we read : " It had been my intention to pass the 
Alps in the autumn, but such are the simple attractions 
of the place that the year had almost expired before my 
departure from Lausanne in the ensuing spring ". The fact 
stated in the words which I have italicised had been ex- 
pressed by Gibbon in the three following ways, neverthe- 
less not one of these could win his editor's approbation : 
" The annual circle was almost revolved " ; " the summer 
was lost in the autumn and succeeding winter " ; " the 
summer and autumn were lost in the succeeding winter ". 

^ Post, p. 65 ; Autobiography, p. 82. 

2 Post, p. 185 ; Auto., p. 287. 2 Post, p. 100 ; Atito., p. 146. 

h 



xvi PREFACE 

Nay, even in a fourth version, recasting the sentence, he 
said : " The simple charms of nature and society detained 
me at the foot of the Alps till the ensuing spring".^ 
" Whatsoever may have been the fruits of my education," 
he wrote in another passage, " they must be ascribed to 
the fortunate shipwreck which cast me on the shores of 
the Leman Lake." The metaphor was too bold to be 
allowed to pass, so that these fruits were ascribed " to the 
fortunate banishment which placed me at Lausanne".^ 
Writing of his return to England from his continental 
tour, he said : " I tore myself from the embraces of Paris. 
... I reached the rural mansion of my parents." This 
was too much for Lord Sheffield, who made him say, just 
as if it were an ordinary Englishman coming home and 
not "The Gibbon": "I reluctantly left Paris. ... I 
arrived at my father's house." ^ It was surely not without 
reason that the historian, in his autobiography, recorded 
of his future editor : " My friend has never cultivated the 
art of composition ". 

Of the suppressions many were due to an unwillingness 
to cause scandal or to give offence. Thus in speaking of 
his youthful essay. The Age of Sesostris, and of his solution 
of a difficulty in the chronology. Gibbon wrote : " In my 
supposition the high priest is guilty of a voluntary error : 
flattery is the prolific parent of falsehood ; and falsehood, 
I will now add, is not incompatible with the sacerdotal 
character ". The last part of the sentence was not allowed 
to appear in print.^ The writer, it seems likely, was not 
thinking so much of priests in general as of the divines, 
" the polemics of either university," who had discharged 
their "ecclesiastical ordnance" against The Decline and 



1 Post, p. 154 ; Autobiography, pp. 205, 263, 301, 404. 

2 Post, p. 108 ; Auto., p. 239. * Post, p. i68 ; Auto., p. 271. 
* Post, p. 64; Auto., p. 80. 



PREFACE xvii 

Fall of the Roman Empire. If he attacked the Church he 
was not more sparing of the mihtary service. In his 
account of his three years' service in the militia he wrote : 
" My temper was insensibly soured by the society of our 
rustic officers, who were alike deficient in the knowledge of 
scholars and the manners of gentlemen ". Lord Sheffield 
did not allow the latter half of the sentence to appear.^ 
An hour may be pleasantly spent in examining these sup- 
pressions in Mr. Murray's edition. The brackets in which 
they are enclosed make tracking them an easy work. As 
we read them we find ourselves wishing that his lordship 
had been as indiscreet as Boswell. 

Respect for Mr. Murray's copyright has made me spar- 
ing in emendations. My text, with the exception of a few 
words, is Lord Sheffield's. It does not, however, exactly 
correspond with either his first or his second edition ; for it 
contains two or three passages which are found only in one 
or other of these, but not in both. When he came to 
re-edit the work he made omissions as well as additions. 
In two recent reprints I was surprised to find not a single 
trace of the famous passage in which Gibbon foretold that 
"the romance of Tom, Jones, that exquisite picture of 
human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and 
the imperial eagle of the House of Austria ". In the first 
edition this exaltation of Fielding over the Habsburghs 
does not appear, and it was from this edition that these two 
reprints were made. On the other hand, Mr. Murray, who 
evidently had the second edition before him, has marked 
as " portions hitherto unpublished " some passages which 
are included in the first edition. One striking description 
I do not find in any one of the seven sketches, though 
undoubtedly it comes from Gibbon's hand. It is where 
he shows his readers Lord North seated on the Treasury 

^ Post, p. 138 ; Autobiography, p. i8g. 



xviii PREFACE 

Bench, supported by Thurlow and Wedderburne, and 
opposed by Barre and Dunning, by Burke and Fox.^ 

The letters and long extracts from Gibbon*'s journal, 
both in English and French, inserted as footnotes by Lord 
Sheffield, are, in the present edition, either for the most 
part omitted or else are transferred to the appendix. In 
giving an appendix as well as footnotes I am following the 
example set by Professor Bury in his learned edition of 
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon 
himself began by placing all his notes at the end of each 
volume. With reluctance, yielding to "the public im- 
portunity, he removed them," in later editions, "to the 
bottom of the page ". One of my chief aims has been to 
throw light on Gibbon's character from his own writings. 
Many of my notes are drawn from Tlie Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire, and many from the five volumes of 
his Miscellaneous Works. Of his correspondence, too, I 
have made great use. To Mr. Murray we owe a large 
debt of gratitude for printing the letters exactly as they 
were written. We discovered for the first time the daring 
liberties Lord Sheffield had at times taken in giving to the 
world a patchwork of extracts as one entire letter. Thus, 
on page 95 of the second volume of the Miscellaneous 
Works, there is a short letter, dated 13th October, 1772. 
It contains but four paragraphs. Of these the first was 
written on 21st April of that year, the second on 3rd 
October, the third on 3rd November, the first four lines 
of the fourth on 30th October, the next two lines on 15th 
October, and the last on 30th October.^ On the date 
given by his lordship, not a single word was written. 
This, however, is an extreme case. 



1 See Post, p. 192, and Autobiography, p. 310, where this passage should be 
found. 

2 See Correspondence, i., 155, 165, 166, 169. 



PREFACE xix 

Though by far the larger part of my quotations from 
the Correspoiidence are found in the first two volumes of 
the Miscellaneous Works, nevertheless, for the convenience 
of my reader, my references are to Mr, Murray's edition 
of the Correspondence. 

To Lord Sheffield's daughter, Maria Josepha Holroyd, 
whose Girlhood has delighted many a reader, is commonly 
attributed, since the recent publications, a large share in 
that excellent piece of work by which, out of seven frag- 
ments, was formed one almost perfect whole. In the 
preface to the Autobiography we are told that "she 
evidently marked the manuscripts in pencil handwriting 
(now recognised as hers) for the printer's copyist. These 
pencil deletions, transpositions and even additions corre- 
spond with the Autobiography as published by Lord 
Sheffield". Nothing can justly be inferred from this, for 
we learn from one of her own letters that she often was 
her father's amanuensis. Three months before Gibbon's 
death, she wrote : " I think the excursion to Tunbridge 
Wells will be a good thing for papa, because he will 
be more engaged, and he will not write or use his eyes, 
which he will do, even by candle light, at home some- 
times, though we write for him all the morning".^ 
Eight months later she mentions the engagement of a 
secretary, " recommended by Mr. Hayley, who had him 
from Mr. Cowper, the author of The TasJc. He is about 
sixteen ; has had a good education ; can read Latin and 
French ; and is to have £^0 a year, and to live with the 
servants. He will be particularly useful, as papa intends 
to undertake the arrangement of Mr. Gibbon's memoirs 
and letters for the public eye."^ She tells us, moreover, 
whose assistance it was that her father did use in the 



1 TAe Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, p. 243. 

2/3., p. 286. 



XX PREFACE 

more difficult part of his task. Writing on 28th August, 
1794, of the arrival at Sheffield Place of William Hayley, 
the poet, with a barrister named More, who spoke sensibly 
and clearly, but with " the pertness and conceit natural to all 
young lawyers," she continued : " Mr. Hayley, Mr. More 
and Miss Poole are closeted reading Mr. Gibbon's memoirs, 
etc., and Mr. Hayley thinks a great deal must be omitted 
in publication. I hope his advice will be taken, for I 
have a great opinion of his judgment." A fortnight la^:er 
she wrote : " I was quite happy that papa and he agreed 
in every material point relative to the memoirs, etc. 
They found much to lop off; but much, very much, of a 
most interesting nature will remain, and by Mr. Hayley's 
assistance I think such a work will appear next spring as 
the public have not been treated with for many years. 
. . . Mr. More was an excellent person to attend the 
committee. He was as good a judge as the two others in 
point of sense and feeling ; at the same time that being 
unprejudicial to Mr. Gibbon as a friend, he gave the 
opinion of an impartial person, which frequently furnished 
the other members of the committee with useful hints."" ^ 
Eighteen months later, when "the Gibbonian memoirs" 
were going through the press, she wrote : " Milady [her 
stepmother, the second Lady Sheffield] and I are excellent 
devils, and corrected yesterday three sheets of sixteen 
pages each".^ There is not a word to show that she 
played anything but a minor part in the work of editing. 
It was, we must assume, as the amanuensis, perhaps of the 
" committee," perhaps of her father only, that she marked 
the manuscripts. 

I discovered with real regret in the course of my reading 
that two passages that throw a charm over the genealogies 

^ The Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, p. 303. 
2 lb., p. 365. 



PREFACE xxi 

with which the autobiography opens had been proved to 
be mere illusions. To that pride of descent "from a 
patron and martyr of learning," which Gibbon felt as " a 
man of letters," he had no just claim. More than a hundred 
years ago Sir Egerton Brydges showed that the historian 
was not sprung from the Baron Say and Seale who was 
murdered by Jack Cade for the crime of "erecting a 
grammar school," and " building a paper mill contrary to 
the king, his crown and dignity "".^ In our own day Mr. 
J, H. Round has, at a blow, demolished the fabric by 
which Henry Fielding and his kinsmen, the Earls of 
Denbigh, were made "the brethren" of "the successors 
of Charles the Fifth ".^ 

I have done my best to trace the quotations and allu- 
sions which are scattered throughout the autobiography. 
Two, however, have baffled me, though I have con- 
sulted some of the best Latin scholars in three univer- 
sities. No one can tell me in what poet is to be found 
the lines : — 

" Manus haec inimica tyrannis 
Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem " ; 

nor who wrote : " Est sacrificulus in pago, et rusticos 
decipit".^ 

I have to acknowledge the kind assistance which I have 
received from Mr. G. K. Fortescue, the Keeper of Printed 
Books in the British Museum, who has once more facilitated 
my researches in the library in every way in his power, and 
has besides allowed me to draw freely on his wide know- 
ledge. Gibbon lamented the want of a public library " in 
the greatest city of the world". Had he lived in these 
happier days, even the charms of Lausanne might not 
have been strong enough to draw him away from the 

1 Post, p. II, n, 2. ^ lb., p. s. «• 3. 2 lb., pp. 102, 171. 



xxii PREFACE 

British Museum. There, if anywhere, is to be found that 
Respubhca Literatorum to whom Bodley dedicated his 
noble library. 

To the President of Magdalen College I am indebted, both 
for the assistance he gave me in my investigations into the 
state of his college as it was in the middle of last century, 
and also for drawing my attention to General Meredith 
Read's Historic Studies in Vaud, Berne and Savoy, a work in 
which is described in the greatest detail Lausanne and its 
inhabitants as they were known to Gibbon. The general 
had the run, as it were, of all the garrets in the houses of 
the old families of that town, in which were stored up 
the dusty records of past generations. Many a memorial 
did he find of Gibbon himself He dined off the Wedge- 
wood ware which the historian had sent for from England, 
while the table was furnished with his table linen, so 
ample had been the store and so durable the quality. He 
even had a glimpse, though only a glimpse, of the few 
remaining bottles of the great man's Madeira. Letters 
and other documents he discovered in large numbers, 
many of them in Gibbon's handwriting, and many in 
Voltaire's and Rousseau's. None of these, unfortunately, 
with one solitary exception, has he given in the original. 
Everything he has translated. One letter of Gibbon's, and 
one only, is printed in the French in which it was written. 
It was thought better (to borrow, with a change of one 
word, a line from The Decline and Fall) " to veil it in the 
obscurity of a Joreign language "} A real service would 
be done to literature were the most interesting of these 
papers published in their original form. 

My task in editing this famous autobiography has cost 
me many months more work than I had counted on when 
my publisher first asked me to undertake it. It has, how- 

^ See Post, p, 153, n 4, 



PREFACE xxiii 

ever, been a labour of love. If I succeed in winning the 
approval of scholars I shall be fully repaid. 

G. B. H. 

Hampstead, 
April A:, 1900.1 

1 The following are the editions of the works to which I most frequently 
refer : — 

Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by J. 
B. Bury, 7 vols. London. Methuen & Company, 1897. 

Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, edited by John, Lord Sheffield. Second 
edition, 5 vols. London. John Murray, 1814. 

Gibbon's Correspondence, edited by Rowland E. Prothero, 2 vols. London. 
John Murray, 1896. 

Gibbon's Autobiographies, edited by John Murray. Second edition, 2 vols. 
London. John Murray, 1897. 

Boswell's Life of Johnson, edited by George Birkbeck Hill, 6 vols. Claren- 
don Press, 1887. 

Voltaire. CEuvres Completes, 66 torn. Paris, 1819-25. 

The title of the present edition is Gibbon's own. I found it, in his hand- 
writing, in the manuscript of the various sketches of the Autobiography now 
preserved in the British Museum. 



xxiv ADVERTISEMENT 



EXTRACTS 

FROM 

LORD SHEFFIELD'S 
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION 

OF THE 

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF MR. GIBBON. 

The melancholy duty of examining the papers of my de- 
ceased friend devolved upon me at a time when I was 
depressed by severe afflictions. 

In that state of mind, I hesitated to undertake the task 
of selecting and preparing his manuscripts for the press. 
The warmth of my early and long attachment to Mr. 
Gibbon made me conscious of a partiality which it was 
not proper to indulge, especially in revising many of his 
juvenile and unfinished compositions. I had to guard, 
not only against a sentiment like my own, which I found 
extensively diffused, but also against the eagerness occa- 
sioned by a very general curiosity to see in print every 
literary relic, however imperfect, of so distinguished a 
writer. 

Being aware how disgracefully authors of eminence have 
been often treated by an indiscreet posthumous publica- 
tion of fragments and careless effusions ; when I had selected 
those papers which, to myself, appeared the fittest for the 
public eye, I consulted some of our common friends, 
whom I knew to be equally anxious with myself for Mr. 



TO THE FIRST EDITION xxv 

Gibbon's fame, and fully competent from their judgment 
to protect it. 

Under such a sanction it is that, no longer suspecting 
myself to view through too favourable a medium the com- 
positions of my friend, I now venture to publish them : 
and it may here be proper to give some information to 
the reader respecting the contents of these volumes. 

The most important part consists of memoirs of Mr. 
Gibbon's life and writings, a work which he seems to have 
projected with peculiar solicitude and attention, and of 
which he left six different sketches, all in his own hand- 
writing. One of these sketches, the most diffuse and cir- 
cumstantial so far as it proceeds, ends at the time when 
he quitted Oxford. Another at the year 1764, when he 
travelled to Italy. A third, at his father's death in 1770. 
A fourth, which he continued to March 1791, appears in 
the form of annals, much less detailed than the others. 
The two remaining sketches are still more imperfect. 
But it is difficult to discover the order in which these 
several pieces were written. From all of them the 
following memoirs have been carefully selected and put 
together. 

My hesitation in giving these memoirs to the world 
arose principally from the circumstance of Mr. Gibbon*'s 
seeming, in some respect, not to have been quite satisfied 
with them, as he had so frequently varied their form : yet, 
notwithstanding this diffidence, the compositions, though 
unfinished, are so excellent, that I think myself j ustified in 
permitting my friend to appear as his own biographer, 
rather than to have that office undertaken by any other 
person less qualified for it. 

This opinion has rendered me anxious to publish the 
present memoirs without any unnecessary delay ; for I am 
persuaded that the author of them cannot be made to 



xxvi ADVEETISEMENT 

appear in a truer light than he does in the following pages. 
In them, and in his different letters, which I have added, 
will be found a complete picture of his talents, his disposi- 
tion, his studies, and his attainments. 

Those slight variations of character, which naturally 
arose in the progress of his life, will be unfolded in a series 
of letters selected from a correspondence between him and 
myself, which continued full thirty years, and ended with 
his death. 

It is to be lamented, that all the sketches of the memoirs, 
except that composed in the form of annals, cease about 
twenty years before ,Mr. Gibbon's death ; and consequently 
that we have the least detailed account of the most in- 
teresting part of his life. His correspondence during that 
period will, in great measure, supply the deficiency. It 
will be separated from the memoirs, and placed in an 
appendix, that those who are not disposed to be pleased 
with the repetitions, familiarities and trivial circumstances, 
of epistolary writing, may not be embarrassed by it. By 
many the letters will be found a very interesting part of 
the present publication. They will prove how pleasant, 
friendly and amiable Mr. Gibbon was in private life ; and 
if in publishing letters so flattering to myself I incur the 
imputation of vanity, I shall meet the charge with a frank 
confession, that I am indeed highly vain of having enjoyed 
for so many years the esteem, the confidence and the affec- 
tion of a man, whose social qualities endeared him to the 
most accomplished society, and whose talents, great as 
they were, must be acknowledged to have been fully 
equalled by the sincerity of his friendship. 

Whatever censure may be pointed against the editor, 
the public will set a due value on the letters for their 
intrinsic merit. I must indeed be blinded either by vanity 
or affection, if they do not display the heart and mind of 



TO THE FIEST EDITION xxvii 

their author in such a manner as justly to increase the 
number of his admirers. 

I have not been solicitous to garble or expunge passages 
which to some may appear trifling. Such passages will 
often, in the opinion of the observing reader, mark the 
character of the writer ; and the omission of them would 
materially take from the ease and familiarity of authentic 
letters. 

Few men, I believe, have ever so fully unveiled their 
own character, by a minute narrative of their sentiments 
and pursuits, as Mr. Gibbon will here be found to have 
done ; not with study and labour — not with an affected 
frankness — but with a genuine confession of his little foibles 
and peculiarities, and a good-humoured and natural dis- 
play of his own conduct and opinions. 

Mr. Gibbon began a journal, a work distinct from the 
sketches already mentioned, in the early part of his life, 
with the following declaration : — 

" I propose from this day (24th August, 1761) to keep 
an exact journal of my actions and studies, both to assist 
my memory, and to accustom me to set a due value on my 
time. I shall begin by setting down some few events of 
my past life, the dates of which I can remember." 

This industrious project he pursued occasionally in 
French, with the minuteness, fidelity and liberality of a 
mind resolved to watch over and improve itself. 

The journal is continued under different titles, and is 
sometimes very concise, and sometimes singularly detailed. 
One part of it is entitled " My Journal," another " Ephe- 
merides, or Jom*nal of my Actions, Studies and Opinions ". 
The other parts are entitled " Ephemerides, ou Journal de 
ma Vie, de mes Etudes, et de mes Sentiraens ". In this 
journal, among the most trivial circumstances, are mixed 
very interesting observations and dissertations on a satire 



xxviii ADVERTISEMENT 

of Juvenal, a passage of Homer or of Longinus, or of any 
other author whose works he happened to read in the 
course of the day ; and he often passes from a remark on 
the most common event, to a critical disquisition of con- 
siderable learning, or an inquiry into some abstruse point 
of philosophy. 

It certainly was not his intention that this private and 
motley diary should be presented to the public ; nor have 
I thought myself at liberty to present it in the shape in 
which he left it. But when reduced to an account of his 
literary occupations, it forms so singular and so interesting 
a portrait of an indefatigable student, that I persuade 
myself it will be regarded as a valuable acquisition by the 
literary world, and as an accession of fame to the memory 
of my friend. 

In the collection of writings which I am now sending to 
the press, there is no article that will so much engage the 
public attention as the memoirs. I will, therefore, close 
all I mean to say as their editor, by assuring the reader, 
that although I have in some measure newly arranged those 
interesting papers, by forming one regular narrative from 
the six different sketches, I have nevertheless adhered with 
scrupulous fidelity to the very words of their author ; and 
I use the letter S to mark such notes as it seemed to me 
necessary to add. 

It remains only to express a wish that, in discharging 
this latest office of affection, my regard to the memory of 
my friend may appear, as I trust it will do, proportioned 
to the high satisfaction which I enjoyed for many years 
in possessing his entire confidence, and very partial 
attachment. 

Sheffield. 

Sheffield Plaoe, 
6tk Aug., 1795. 



TO THE SECOND EDITION xxix 



EXTRACT 

FBOM 

LORD SHEFFIELD'S 
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION 

It will be remembered that the memoirs were composed * 

and formed from six different sketches, and from notes and 
memoranda on loose unconnected papers and cards, all in 
Mr. Gibbon's handwriting. This new edition of his 
posthumous works has furnished me with the opportunity 
of interweaving several additional extracts from the same 
sources; illustrating and enlarging the memoirs, where 
they were most scanty, by notes principally selected from 
his journal. 

Sheffield. 

Sheitield Place, 
24M Nov., 1814. 



MEMOIRS 

OF 

MY LIFE AND WRITINGS 



TN the fifty-second year of my age, after the completion of an 
arduous and successful work, I now propose to employ some 
moments of my leisure in reviewing the simple transactions 
of a private and literary life. Truth, naked unblushing truth, 
the first virtue of more serious history, must be the sole 
recommendation of this personal narrative. The style shall 
be simple and familiar ; but style is the image of character,^ 
and the habits of correct writing may produce, without labour 
or design, the appearance of art and study.^ My own amuse- 
ment is my motive, and will be my reward : and if these sheets 
are communicated to some discreet and indulgent friends, 
they will be secreted from the public eye till the author shall 
be removed beyond the reach of criticism or ridicule.^ 

1 [See post, p. 190, where he says that ' ' the style of an author should be the 
image of his mind". Buffon had said before him: " Le style est I'homme 
meme". If style is the image of character, the general absence of style is 
explained by Pope, who says : — 

" Most women have no characters at all " 

{Moral Essays, ii., 2) ; 
and by Johnson, who goes still further, maintaining that "the greater part of 
mankind have no character at all " (Johnson's Works, viii., 355). Wordsworth, 
criticising Johnson's assertion, says that " every man has a character of his own 
to the eye that has skill to perceive it" (Wordsworth's Works, ed. 1857, vi., 
316).] 

2 [" He that has once studiously formed a style rarely writes afterwards with 
complete ease" (Johnson's Works, viii., 284).] 

'^ This passage is found in one only of the six sketches, and in that which 
seems to have been the first written, and which was laid aside among loose 
papers. Mr. Gibbon, in his communications with me on the subject of his 
Memoirs, a subject which he had never mentioned to any other person, ex- 
pressed a determination of publishing them in his lifetime ; and never appears to 
have departed from that resolution, excepting in one of his letters annexed, in 
which he intimates a doubt, though rather carelessly, whether in his time, or at 
any time, they would meet the eye of the public. In a conversation, however, 
not long before his death, I suggested to him that, if he should make them 
a full image of his mind, he would not have nerves to publish them, and there- 
fore that they should be posthumous. He answered, rather eagerly, that he 
was determined to publish them in his lifetime. — Sheffield. [For the 
1 



2 EDWARD GIBBON 

A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors 
so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of 
some common principle in the minds of men. We seem to 
have lived in the persons of our forefathers ; it is the labour 
and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. 
Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle 
in which Nature has confined us. Fifty or an hundred years 
may be allotted to an individual, but we step ^ forwards beyond 
death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest ; 
and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by 
associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our 
calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate, than to sup- 
press, the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist 
may laugh,^ the philosopher may preach ;^ but Reason herself 

"letter annexed," dated January 6, 1793, see Corres., ii., 357. He writes: 
" Of the Memoirs little has been done, and with that little I am not satisfied. 
They must be postponed till a mature season ; and I much doubt whether the 
book and the author can ever see the light at the same time." On December 
28, 1791, he had written: "I have much revolved the plan of the Memoirs 
I once mentioned, and, as you do not think it ridiculous, I believe I shall 
make an attempt. If I can please myself I am confident of not displeasing ; 
but let this be a profound secret between us ; people must not be prepared to 
laugh, they must be taken by surprise " [ib. , ii. , 280). Even by this earlier date 
he had made more than one attempt. A sketch that forms an important part 
of the Memoirs as published was finished on March 2, 1791 (Auto., p. 349).] 

1 [In the original, " stretch " (Auto., p. 417).] 

2 [" Stemmata quid faciunt? Quid prodest, Pontice, longo 
Sanguine censeri, pictosque ostendere vultus 
Majorum, et stantes in curribus ^milianos, 
Et Curios jam dimidios, humeroque minorem 
Corvinum, et Galbam oculis nasoque carentem?" 

(Juvenal, Sat. viii., i.) 
Savage writes in the opening lines of The Bastard: — 

" He lives to build, not boast, a generous race; 
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face ". 
Young says of the nobleman : — 

' ' He stands for fame on his forefathers' feet, 

By heraldry prov'd valiant or discreet. 

With what a decent pride he throws his eyes 

Above the man by three descents less wise ! 

If virtues at his noble hands you crave. 

You bid him raise his father's from the grave. 

Men should press forward in fame's glorious chase ; 

Nobles look backward, and so lose the race. " 

(Tke Universal Passion, Sat. i. , 1. 131.)] 
3 ["The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting to despise, the acci- 
dental distinctions of birth and fortune, reserve their esteem for the superior 
qualities of the mind, with which they themselves are so plentifully endowed" 
(Tke Decline, ii. , 486).] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 3 

will respect the prejudices and habits, which have been con- 
secrated by the experience of mankind.'^ Few there are who 
can sincerely despise in others an advantage of which they 
are secretly ambitious to partake. The knowledge of our own 
family from a remote period will be always esteemed as an 
abstract pre-eminence, since it can never be promiscuously 
enjoyed ; but the longest series of peasants and mechanics 
would not afford much gratification to the pride of their 
descendant. We wish to discover our ancestors, but we wish 
to discover them possessed of ample fortunes, adorned with 
honourable titles, and holding an eminent rank in the class of 
hereditary nobles, which has been maintained for the wisest 
and most beneficial purposes in almost every climate of the 
globe, and in almost every modification of political society.^ 

Wherever the distinction of birth is allowed to form a 
superior order in the state, education and example should 
always, and will often, produce among them a dignity of 
sentiment and propriety of conduct, which is guarded from 
dishonour by their own and the public esteem. If we read 
of some illustrious line so ancient that it has no beginning, 
so worthy that it ought to have no end, we sympathize in its 
various fortunes ; nor can we blame the generous enthusiasm, 
or even the harmless vanity, of those who are allied to the 
honours of its name. For my own part, could I draw my 
pedigree from a general, a statesman, or a celebrated author, 
I should study their lives with the diligence of filial love. In 
the investigation of past events, our curiosity is stimulated by 

1 [The rest of the paragraph to " political society " first appears in the second 
edition. In its arrangement it differs in some places from the original, which 
in Auto., p. 417, is marked as hitherto unpublished.] 

2 ["But, sir (said Johnson), as subordination is very necessary for society, 
and contentions for superiority very dangerous, mankind, that is to say, all 
civilised nations, have settled it upon a plain, invariable principle. A man is 
born to hereditary rank ; or his being appointed to certain offices gives him a 
certain rank. Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we 
all upon an equality we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal 
pleasure" {Bosw&lY s Johnson, i. , 442). 

Satan maintained in Hell that 

' ' Orders and degrees 
Jar not with liberty, but well consist ". 

{Paradise Lost, v. , 792. )] 



4 EDWARD GIBBON 

the immediate or indirect reference to ourselves ; but in the 
estimate of honour we should learn to value the gifts of Nature 
above those of Fortune ; to esteem in our ancestors the quali- 
ties that best promote the interests of society ; and to pronounce 
the descendant of a king less truly noble than the offspring of 
a man of genius, whose writings will instruct or delight the 
latest posterity. 1 The family of Confucius is, in my opinion, 
the most illustrious in the world. After a painful ascent of 
eight or ten centuries, our barons and princes of Europe are 
lost in the darkness of the middle ages ; but, in the vast 
equality of the empire of China, the posterity of Confucius 
have maintained, above two thousand two hundred years, their 
peaceful honours and perpetual succession. The chief of the 
family is still revered, by the sovereign and the people, as the 
lively image of the wisest of mankind. The nobility of the 
Spencers has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of 
Marlborough ; but I exhort them to consider the Fairy Queen " 
as the most precious jewel of their coronet. Our immortal 
Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, 
who draw their origin from the Counts of Habsburgh, the lineal 
descendants of Ethico, in the seventh century, Duke of Alsace.^ 
Far different have been the fortunes of the English and German 
divisions of the family of Habsburgh ; the former, the knights 
and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have slowly risen to the dignity 

1 [" Few there are who dare trust the memorials of their family to the public 
annals of their country " (The Decline, vi., 460).] 

2 ' ' Nor less praiseworthy are the ladies [sisters] three, 
The honour of that noble familie, 
Of which I meanest boast myself to be." 

(Spenser, Colin Clout, etc., v. ,538.) — GiBBON. 
[The second daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough married Charles 
Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, whose eldest son succeeded his aunt, Henrietta, 
Duchess of Marlborough, in the Dukedom. From the Earl's youngest son, 
Gibbon's friend, the second Earl Spencer, was descended.] 

•* [Gibbon gives a brief account of Ethico in his ' ' Antiquities of the House of 
Brunswick," Misc. Works, iii. , 504. 

' ' The origin of this family [the Habsburg] has been a constant puzzle to the 
fertile imaginations of genealogists. Some among them trace it back to the 
Merovingians, others to the Carolingians ; others, again, to that Duke Ethico, 
of Alamania, who is supposed to have been the common stock from which 
sprang the houses of Habsburg, Lorraine and Baden" (Lager's Austro-Hun- 
gary, English trans., p. 141).] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 5 

of a peerage ; ^ the latter, the Emperors of Germany and 
Kings of Spain, have threatened the Hberty of the old, and 
invaded the treasures of the new world. The successors of 
Charles the Fifth may disdain their brethren of England ; but 
the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human 
manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial, and the 
imperial eagle of the house of Austria. ^ 

That these sentiments are just, or at least natural, I am 
inclined to believe, since I do not feel myself interested in 
the cause ; for I can derive from my ancestors neither glory 
nor shame.3 Yet a sincere and simple narrative of my own 
life may amuse some of my leisure hours ; but it will subject 
me, and perhaps with justice, to the imputation of vanity. I 
may judge, however, from the experience both of past and of 

1 ["Geffery, Earl of Hapsburgh, by the oppression of Rodolph, Emperor of 
Germany, being reduced to extreme poverty, one of his sons, named Geffery, 
served King Henry III. in his wars in England, and because his father had 
pretensions to the dominions of Laufenburgh and Rinfilding, he took the name 
of Fielding " (Collins's Peerage, ed, 1756, ii., 247). The peerage was conferred 
by James I. {ib., p. 251). 

The novelist ' ' being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, his kinsman, 
the Earl asked him how it was that he spelled his name ' Fielding ' and not 
'Feilding,' like the head of the house. 'I cannot tell, my Lord,' said he, 
' except it be that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to 
spell ' " (Thackeray's English Humourists, ed. 1858, p. 282).] 

2 [" There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge. To have 
your name mentioned by Gibbon is like having it written on the dome of St. 
Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire and behold it" (ib., p. 275). 
Gibbon again praises TomJo?ies, post, p. 243, n. In The Decline, iii. , 363, he speaks 
of it as " the romance of a great master, which may be considered as the history 
of human nature". Mr. J. H. Round, in 7'he Genealogist, New Series, x., 193, 
has ' ' demonstrated that the Habsburg descent of the Fieldings is an absurd 
fiction". It first appeared in print, he believes, in 1656, in Dugdale's War- 
■wickshire. The splendour of Gibbon's language is but a " baseless fabric " ; 
happily the pageant, insubstantial though it may be, shall never fade away. 

The Earls of Denbigh may be consoled. If they have lost the Habsburghs, 
of Henry Fielding they cannot be deprived.] 

•'[Gibbon, writing to John Nichols about his ancestry, says : " Modesty, or 
the affectation of modesty, may repeat the Vix ea nostra voco ; but experience 
has proved that there is scarcely any man of a tolerable family who does not 
wish to know as much as he can about it ; nor is such an ambition either foolish 
in itself, or hurtful to society " (Nichols, Lit. Aiiec. , viii. , 557). Gibbon's quota- 
tion is from Ovid's Metamorphoses , xiii., 140 : — 

" Genus, et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi, 
Vix ea nostra voco ". 
Thus Englished by Johnson [Ratnbler, No. 46) : — 

" Nought from my birth or ancestors I claim ; 
All is my own, my honour and my shame ".] 



6 EDWAED GIBBON 

the present times, that the public are always curious to know 
the men, who have left behind them any image of their minds : 
the most scanty accounts of such men are compiled with 
diligence, and perused with eagerness ^ ; and the student of 
every class may derive a lesson, or an example, from the lives 
most similar to his own. My name may hereafter be placed 
among the thousand articles of a Biographia Britannica ^ ; 
and I must be conscious, that no one is so well qualified, as 
myself, to describe the series of my thoughts and actions. 
The authority of my masters, of the grave Thuanus,^ and the 
philosophic Hume,* might be sufficient to justify my design ; 
but it would not be difficult to produce a long list of ancients 
and moderns, who, in various forms, have exhibited their own 
portraits. Such portraits are often the most interesting, and 
sometimes the only interesting parts of their writings ; and if 
they be sincere, we seldom complain of the minuteness or 
prolixity of these personal memorials. The lives of the 
younger Pliny, of Petrarch, and of Erasmus, are expressed in 
the epistles, which they themselves have given to the world. 
The essays of Montaigne and Sir William Temple bring us 
home to the houses and bosoms of the authors ^ : we smile 



1 [" The biographical part of literature," said Johnson, " is what I love most " 
(Boswell's /o/?w5£)«, i., 425).] 

'^[Horace Walpole {Works, i., 412) speaks of "the benign author of the 
Biographia Britannica, a work which I cannot help calling vindicatio Britan- 
nica, or a defence of everybody ".] 

■' [The French historian De Thou, whose Historia sui Temporis in 138 books 
Johnson once thought of translating (Boswell's Johnson, iv. , 410; see also ib., 
\., 32). His Autobiography is in vol. vii. of the edition of his Historia, published 
in London in 1733. 

Burnet " made him his pattern in history ". See the Preface by the Bishop's 
son to Burnet's Hist, of His Own Time, p. 3. Gibbon includes him with Hume 
in what he calls ' ' a small but venerable synod of historians ". ' ' Since the origin 
of Theological Factions some historians, Ammianus Marcellinus \^post, p. 181], 
Fra-Paolo, Thuanus, Hume, and perhaps a few others, have deserved the 
singular praise of holding the balance with a steady and equal hand " {Misc. 
Works, iv., 624).] 

"* [Hume's brief autobiography, written shortly before his death, was prefixed 
to the later editions of his History. I have edited it in my edition of his Letters 
to William St7'ahan.'] 

5 [Gibbon perhaps had running in his head the passage where Bacon, in the 
dedication of his Essays, says that ' ' they come home to men's business and 
bosoms ".] 



MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 7 

without contempt at the headstrong passions of Benevenuto 
Cellini, and the gay follies of Colley Gibber.^ The confessions 
of St. Austin and Rousseau disclose the secrets of the huntian 
heart ; the commentaries of the learned Huet ^ have survived 
his evangelical demonstration ; and the memoirs of Goldoni 
are more truly dramatic than his Italian comedies. The 
heretic and the churchman are strongly marked in the charac- 
ters and fortunes of Whiston ^ and Bishop Newton * ; and 
even the dullness of Michael de MaroUes ^ and Anthony 
Wood ^ acquires some value from the faithful representation 
of men and manners. That I am equal or superior to some 
of these, the efforts ^ of modesty or affectation cannot force 
me to dissemble. 



1 [Horace Walpole {Letters, v., 197) said that "Gibber's Apology deserved 
immortality ".] 

^[Huet, Bishop^ of Avranches, published in 1718 Commentarius de rebus ad 
eum pe7-tinentibus. Sainte-Beuve, quoting some "vers badins" of Voltaire's 
on Huet, continues: " Soyez done la plume la plus savante de I'Europe, 
I'homme de la plus vaste lecture qui fut jamais, le dernier de cette forte race des 
savants du xve at du xvie siecle, . . . et tout cela pour que, sitot apr^s vous, 
on ne sache plus que votre nom, et qu'on n'y rattache qu'une id6e vague, un 
sourire n6 d'une plaisanterie ! Ah ! que le sage Huet avait raison quand il 
d6montrait presque g^om^triquement quelle vanity et quelle extravagance c'est 
de croire qu'il y a une r6putation qui nous appartienne aprfes notre mort ! " 
(Ca7isei-ies, ii., 163.)] 

"[" The honest, pious, visionary Whiston," Gibbon calls him [The Decline, 
iv. , 433). Though he was heretic enough to be banished from the University of 
Cambridge for his Arianism (Whiston's Memoirs, p. 173 ; Monk's Bentley, i. , 
290), he was as superstitious as the most orthodox. In 1746 he gave notice 
that the Millennium would begin in 1766, when "there will be no more an 
infidel in Christendom, and there will be no more a gaming-table at Tunbridge" 
{Memoirs, p. 398). He had once fixed an earlier date. Horace Walpole 
{Letters, i., 381) mentions "the Duchess of Bolton's geographical resolution 
of going to China, when Whiston told her the world would be burnt in three 
years ".] 

''^Post, p. 211.] 

s[" Michel de Marolles (1600-1681) composa soixante-neuf ouvrages, dont 
plusieurs ^taient des traductions tr^s utiles dans leur temps " {(Euvres de 
Voltaire, xvii. , 124).] 

^5 [" Mr. Joyner told me Mr. Wood used often to come to him, and that he 
told him many stories which he (Mr. Wood) penned down in his presence, and 
when anything pleased Mr. Wood, he would always cry Hum, upon which 
Mr. Joyner would go on to expatiate" (Hearne's Remains, ed. 1869, iii. , 70). 

"May 4, 178 1. Mine a great character! Mercy on me! I am a com- 
position of Anthony Wood and Madame Danois [d'Aulnoy], and I know not 
what trumpery writers " (Horace Walpole's Letters, viii., 34).] 

■^ [In Lord Sheffield's editions, "effects ".] 



8 EDWARD GIBBON 

My family is originally derived from the county of Kent.^ 
The southern district, which borders on Sussex and the sea, 
was formerly overspread with the great forest Anderida, and 
even now retains the denomination of the Weald or Woodland. 
In this district, and in the hundred and parish of Rolvenden, 
the Gibbons were possessed of lands in the year one thousand 
three hundred and twenty-six ; and the elder branch of the 
family, without much increase or diminution of property, still 
adheres to its native soil. Fourteen years after the first 
appearance of his name, John Gibbon is recorded as the 
Marmorarius or architect of King Edward the Third : the 
strong and stately castle of Queensborough, which guarded 
the entrance of the Medway, was a monument of his skill ; 
and the grant of an hereditary toll on the passage from Sand- 
wich to Stonar, in the Isle of Thanet, is the reward of no 
vulgar artist. In the visitations of the heralds, the Gibbons 
are frequently mentioned ; they held the rank of Esquire in 
an age, when that title was less promiscuously assumed ^ : one 
of them, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was captain of 
the militia of Kent ; and a free school, in the neighbouring 
town of Benenden, proclaims the charity and opulence of its 
founder.^ But time, or their own obscurity,, has cast a veil of 

1 [Part of the history of his family he derives from a letter in Tke Gent. Mag. , 
1788, p. 698. In a letter to John Nichols, the editor, he calls it " a very curious 
and civil account of the Gibbon family ". Nichols forwarded to him some 
"genealogical documents relating to Mr. Gibbon's family; amongst them 
' some Remarques of the Family of me, John Gibbon, Bluemantle Pursuivant 
at Arms,' with a full pedigree of the family, and several emblazoned arms " 
(Nichols, Lit. Anec, viii., 557; Corres., ii., 301, 328).] 

2[" Esquires and gentlemen," writes Blackstone, " are confounded together 
by Sir Edward Coke, who observes that every esquire is a gentleman, and a 
gentleman is defined to be one qui arma gerit, who bears coat-armour, the 
grant of which adds gentility to a man's family. ... It is, indeed, a matter 
somewhat unsettled, what constitutes the distinction, or who is a real esquii-e." 
Here follows an enumeration of the various sorts of esquires {Commentaries, 
ed. 1775, i., 406). 

So early as 1709 The Tatler (No. 19) wrote : " In a word it is now Populus 
Arm.igero7-um, a people of Esquires. And I don't know but by the late act of 
naturalisation, foreigners will assume that title as part of the immunity of being 
Englishmen." Eighty years later Bos well says that ' ' the appellation of Gentleman 
was lost in the indiscriminate assumption of Esqtdre" {Life of Johnson, i. , 34).] 

3[Benenden is near Rolvenden. "Edward Gibbon, in 1602, founded a 
school, which has been subsequently endowed with property producing ;^ii4 
per annum" (Lewis's Topog. Diet., ed. 1835, under Benenden).] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 9 

oblivion over the virtues and vices of my Kentish ancestors ; 
their character or station confined, them to the labours and 
pleasures of a rural life : nor is it in my power to follow the 
advice of the Poet, in an inquiry after a name, — 

Go 1 search it there, where to be born, and die, 
Of rich and poor makes all the history. ^ 

So recent is the institution of our parish registers.^ In the 
beginning of the seventeenth century, a younger branch of the 
Gibbons of Rolvenden migrated from the country to the city ; 
and from this branch I do not blush to descend. The law re- 
quires some abilities ; the church imposes some restraints ; and 
before our army and navy, our civil establishments, and Indian 
empire, had opened so many paths of fortune, the mercantile 
profession was more frequently chosen by youths of a liberal 
race and education, who aspired to create their own indepen- 
dence. Our most respectable families have not disdained the 
counting-house, or even the shop ; their names are enrolled in 
the Livery and Companies of London ; and in England, as well 
as in the Italian commonwealths, heralds have been compelled 
to declare that gentility is not degraded by the exercise of 
trade.-^ 

The armorial ensigns which, in the times of chivalry, adorned 
the crest and shield of the soldier, are now become an empty 
decoration, which every man, who has money to build a 
carriage, may paint according to his fancy on the panels.* 
My family arms are the same, which were borne by the 
Gibbons of Kent in an age, when the College of Heralds 

i[Pope, Moral Essays, iii. , 287.] 

^[" Church Register was instituted 30 Henry VIII." John Gibbon's Intro- 
ductio ad Lati7iam Blasoniam, Preface. 

In The Gent. Mag., 1785, p. 93, a copy is given of a " Constitution" of the 
year 1597, ' ' in whicli it was ordeyned how the Register Bookes must be saufifiy 
kept ■'.] 

■* [See Appendix i]. 

■* [Blackstone, writing of " the court military, or court of chivalry" says that 
' ' its civil jurisdiction is principally in two points ; the redressing injuries of 
honour, and correcting encroachments in matters of coat-armour, precedency, 
and other distinctions of families. . . . It is the business of this court, accord- 
ing to Sir Matthew Hale, to adjust the right and armorial ensigns, bearings, 
crests, supporters, pennons, etc." {Commentai'ies, ed. 1775, iii., 103-5).] 



10 EDWARD GIBBON 

religiously guarded the distinctions of blood and name : a 
lion rampant gardant, between three schallop-shells argent, 
on a field azure. ^ I should not however have been tempted 
to blazon my coat of arms, were it not connected with a 
whimsical anecdote. — About the reign of James the First, 
the three harmless schallop-shells were changed by Edmund 
Gibbon esq. into three Ogresses, or female cannibals,^ with 
a design of stigmatizing three ladies, his kinswomen, who 
had provoked him by an unjust law-suit. But this singular 
mode of revenge, for which he obtained the sanction of Sir 
William Seagar, king at arms, soon expired with its author ; 
and, on his own monument in the Temple church, the 
monsters vanish, and the three schallop-shells resume their 
proper and hereditary place. 

Our alliances by mai-riage it is not disgraceful to mention. 
The chief honour of my ancestry is James Fiens, Baron Say 
and Scale, and Lord High Treasurer of England, in the reign 
of Henry the Sixth ; from whom by the Phelips, the Whet- 
nalls, and the Cromers, I am lineally descended in the eleventh 
degree."* His dismission and imprisonment in the Tower 
were insufficient to appease the popular clamour ; and the 
Treasurer, with his son-in-law Cromer, was beheaded (1450), 
after a mock trial by the Kentish insurgents. The black list 
of his offences, as it is exhibited in Shakespeare,* displays the 
ignorance and envy of a plebeian tyrant. Besides the vague 
reproaches of selling Maine and Normandy to the Dauphin, 
the Treasurer is specially accused of luxury, for riding on a 
foot-cloth ; and of treason, for speaking French, the language 
of our enemies : " Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the 
youth of the realm," s.ays Jack Cade to the unfortunate Lord, 

^ The father of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke married an heiress of this family 
of Gibbon. The Chancellor's escutcheon in the Temple Hall quarters the arms 
of Gibbon, as does also that, in Lincoln's Inn Hall, of Charles York, Chan- 
cellor in 1770. — Sheffield. 

2 [For an explanation of this " heraldic pun " see Auto., p. 4, n.'\ 

3 [The descent was through Robert Gibbon, from whom he was not sprung, 
according to Brydges. See note 2 on next page.] 

■* [2 Henry VI., Act iv.. Scenes 2 and 7.] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 11 

" in erecting a grammar-school ; and whereas before our fore- 
fathers had no other books than the score and the tally, thou 
hast caused printing to be used ; and, contrary to the king, 
his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will 
be proved to thy face, that thou hast men about thee, who 
usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words, 
as no christian ear can endure to hear." Our dramatic poet 
is generally more attentive to character than to history ; and 
I much fear that the art of printing was not introduced into 
England, till several years after Lord Say's death ; but of 
some of these meritorious crimes I should hope to find my 
ancestor guilty ; and a man of letters may be proud of his 
descent from a patron and martyr of learning. 

In the beginning of the last century Robert Gibbon esq. 
of Rolvenden in Kent ^ (who died in 1618), had a son of 
the same name of Robert, who settled in London, and be- 
came a member of the Clothworkers' Company. His wife 
was a daughter of the Edgars, who flourished about four 
hundred years in the county of Suffolk, and produced an 
eminent and wealthy serjeant-at-law. Sir Gregory Edgar, in 
the reign of Henry the Seventh. Of the sons of Robert 
Gibbon (who died in l643), Matthew ^ did not aspire above 



1 Robert Gibbon, my lineal ancestor in the fifth degree, was captain of the 
Kentish mihtia, and as he died in the year 1618 it may be presumed that he 
had appeared in arms at the time of the Spanish invasion. His wife was 
Margaret Phillips, daughter of Edward Phillips de la Weld in Tenterden, and 
of Rose his wife, daughter of George Whitnell of East Peckham, esquire. 
Peckham, the seat of the Whitnells in Kent, is mentioned, not indeed much 
to its honour, in the Mdmoires die Co?nte de Grammo7it [English ed. , 1876, p. 
292], a classic work, the delight of every man and woman of taste to whom the 
French language is familiar \j>ost, p. 133].— Gibbon. [East Peckham is between 
Tunbridge and Maidstone.] 

2 [Sir S. E. Brydges in The Geiit. Mag., 1796, p. 271, says that : " Matthew 
Gibbon was the son of Thomas Gibbon, of Westcliffe near Dover, gent., of a 
totally different, and more distant branch of the Rolvenden family, who was a 
man of considerable landed, and personal property". Thomas's grandfather, 
also Thomas Gibbon, was " a wealthy and illiterate yeoman. He died in 
1596." Matthew Gibbon's mother was sister to the wife of Sir John Maynard, 
the old serjeant-at-law, who, but for the coming of the Prince of Orange, 
" would have outlived, not only all the men of the law of his time, but the law 
itself" (Burnet's Hist, of His Own Time, ed. 1818, ii., 441). " Matthew's half- 
brother, Thomas, married the sister of Sir William Rooke, father of Sir George 
Rooke the admiral."] 



12 EDWAED GIBBON 

the station of a linen-draper in Leadenhall-street ; but John 
has given to the public some curious memorials of his exist- 
ence, his character, and his family. He was born on the 
third of November hi the year 1629 ; his education was 
liberal, at a grammar school, and afterwards in Jesus College 
at Cambridge ; and he celebrates the retired content which 
he enjoyed at Alles borough, in Worcestershire, in the house 
of Thomas Lord Coventry,^ where he was employed as a 
domestic tutor, the same office which Mr. Hobbes exercised 
in the Devonshire family.^ But the spirit of my kinsman 
soon immerged into more active life : he visited foreign 
countries as a soldier and a traveller, acquired the knowledge 
of the French and Spanish languages, passed some time in 
the Isle of Jersey, crossed the Atlantic, and resided upwards 
of a twelvemonth (1659) in the rising colony of Virginia. 
In this remote province his taste, or rather passion, for 
heraldry found a singular gratification at a war-dance of the 
native Indians. As they moved in measured steps, brandish- 
ing their tomahawks, his curious eye contemplated their 
little shields of bark, and their naked bodies, which were 
painted with the colours and symbols of his favourite science. 
" At which I exceedingly wondered ; and concluded that 
heraldry was ingrafted naturally into the sense of human race. 
If so, it desei-ves a greater esteem than now-a-days is put 
upon it." ^ His return to England after the Restoration was 
soon followed by his marriage — his settlement in a house 
in St. Catherine's Cloister, near the Tower, which devolved 
to my grandfather — and his introduction into the Heralds' 
College (in l67l) by the style and title of Blue-mantle Pur- 

1 [The second Earl of Coventry. Allesborough is close to Pershore.] 
2[" Qui per multos annos servivit duobus comitibus Devonise (patri et filio). " 
So Hobbes described himself in his epitaph (Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. A. 
Clark, i., 386).] 

s \l7itrod2ictio, etc., p. 156. La Fontaine might have had this passage in 
mind when he wrote [Fables, x. , 16) : — 

" Le noble poursuivit : 
Moi, je sais le blason ; j'en veux tenir ^cole. 
Comme si, devers I'lnde, on eut eu dans I'esprit 
La sotte vanit6 de ce jargon frivole ! "] 



MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 13 

suivant at Arms. In this office he enjoyed near fifty years 
the rare felicity of uniting, in the same pursuit, his duty and 
inclination : his name is rexnembered in the College, and 
many of his letters are still preserved. Several of the most 
respectable characters of the age, Sir William Dugdale,^ Mr. 
Ashmole, Dr. John Betts and Dr. Nehemiah Grew, were his 
friends ; and in the society of such men, John Gibbon may 
be recorded without disgrace as the member of an astrological 
club. 2 The study of hereditary honours is favourable to the 
Royal prerogative ; and my kinsman, like most of his family, 
was a high Tory both in church and state. In the latter end 
of the reign of Charles the Second, his pen was exercised 
in the cause of the Duke of York : the Republican faction he 
most cordially detested ; and as each animal is conscious of 
its proper arms, the herald's revenge was emblazoned on a 
most diabolical escutcheon. ^ But the triumph of the Whig 
government checked the preferment of Blue-mantle ; and he 
was even suspended from his office, till his tongue could learn 
to pronounce the oath of abjuration."^ His life was prolonged 

1 [" ' Sir William Dugdale avowed to mee that at the time of his birth .... 
a swarme of bees came and settled under the window where hee was borne. 
September i8. Johan. Gybbon.' . . . 'He was borne September 12, 1605' 
— from Mr. Gibbons, Blewmantle. That afternoon a swarme of bees pitch't 
under his mother's chamber-window, as it were an omen of his laborious 
collections" {AxLhrey's Brief Lives, i. , 241).] 

2 ["When the king was prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, an astrologer was 
consulted what hour would be found most favourable to an escape " (Johnson's 
Works, vii., 154. See William Lilly's History of his Life, ed. 1826, pp. 61, 63). 

' ' One of Dryden's opinions will do him no honour in the present age, though 
in his own time, at least in the beginning of it, he was far from having it con- 
fined to himself. He put great confidence in the prognostications of judicial 
astrology" (Johnson's Works, vii., 300). Dryden defended his belief by the 
authority of " not only Horace and Persius, but Augustus himself " (Dryden's 
Works, ed. 1882, xiv. , 167).] 

3 ["Tutus sit augustissimus Rex Carolus, Sancti Foslicis Festo prospere 
natus ; Celsissimus Illustrissimus Dux Jacobus, quem Stellam Borealem ante 
multos annos prsedixere Vates ; et universa Stirps Regia a Turba Fanatica 
Antimonarchica ; Quibus Symbolum et Insigne est Bellua multorum Capitum, 
coloris Diabolici (viz. nigri) in Campo sanguineo (Armes pour enquerir, ut 
dicimus Gallice). Clamor bellicus : Iste est Haeres, trucidemus eum, et obtine- 
amus Haereditatem " [Introductio, etc., p. 165). Littr^ defines armes d en- 
quirir as " armes qui, 6tant contre les regies ordinaires, font qu'en les voyant 
on se demande la raison de cette maniere extraordinaire ".] 

''[By the act of Abjuration, passed in the last year of William IIL, "all 
persons in any office, trust, or employment," were required to take an oath 
abjuring "the pretended Prince of Wales" (Blackstone's Commentaries, i., 
368 ; Smollett's Hist, of England, ed. 1800, i., 436).] 



14 EDWARD GIBBON 

to the age of ninety : and, in the expectation of the inevitable 
though uncertain hour,i he wishes to preserve the blessings 
of health, competence, and virtue. In the year l682 he 
published in London his Introductio ad Latinam Blasoniam, an 
original attempt, which Camden had desiderated, to define, 
in a Roman idiom, the terms and attributes of a Gothic insti- 
tution. ^ It is not two years since I acquired, in a foreign 
land, some domestic intelligence of my own family ; and this 
intelligence was conveyed to Switzerland from the heart of 
Germany, I had formed an acquaintance with Mr. Langer, 
a lively and ingenious scholar, while he resided at Lausanne 
as preceptor to the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick.^ On his 
return to his proper station of Librarian to the Ducal Library 
of Wolfenbuttel, he accidentally found among some literary 
rubbish a small old English volume of heraldry, inscribed with 
the name of John Gibbon. From the title only Mr. Latiger 
judged that it might be an acceptable present to his friend ; 
and he judged rightly. His manner is quaint and affected ; 
his order is confused : but he displays some wit, more reading, 
and still more enthusiasm : and if an enthusiast be often 
absurd, he is never languid. An English text is perpetually 
interspersed with Latin sentences in prose and verse; but in 
his own poetry he claims an exemption from the laws of 
prosody. Amidst a profusion of genealogical knowledge, my 
kinsman could not be forgetfvil of his own name ; and to him I 
am indebted for almost the whole of my information concern- 
ing the Gibbon family.''^ From this small work (a duodecimo 
of one hundred and sixty-five pages) the author expected 



i[" Alike await th' inevitable hour " (Gray's Elegy, 1. 35).] 

2 [" Learned Camden (who addicted himself to Heraldry in his latter years) 
was so out of conceit with their terms (being for the most part barbarous), that 
in his Patents (which were always Latin) when he came to the Description of 
the Arms themselves, he made it French " {Introductio, etc., Preface).] 

3 [The Prince fell at the Battle of Ligny. For Gibbon's letter to Langer 
and essay entitled "The Antiquities of the House of Brunswick," see Misc. 

Works, iii. , 351.] 

*Mr. Gibbon seems, after this was written, to have collected much additional 
information respecting his family ; as appears from a number of manuscripts 
in my possession. — Sheffield. 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 15 

immortal fame, and at the conclusion of his labour he sings, 
in a strain of self-exultation : — 

Usque hue corrigitur Romana Blasonia per me ; 

Verborumque dehinc barbara forma cadat. 
Hie liber, in meritum si forsitan ineidet usum, 

Testis rite meae sedulitatis erit. 
Quiequid agat Zoilus, ventura fatebitur aetas 

Artis quod fueram non Clypearis inops. 

Such are the hopes of authors ! In the failure of those 
hopes John Gibbon has not been the first of his profession, 
and very possibly may not be the last of his name. His 
brother Matthew Gibbon^ the draper, had one daughter and 
two sons — my grandfather Edward, who was born in the year 
1666, and Thomas, afterwards Dean of Carlisle. According 
to the mercantile creed, that the best book is a profitable 
ledger, the writings of John the herald would be much less 
precious than those of his nephew Edward : but an author 
professes at least to write for the public benefit ; and the 
slow balance of trade can be pleasing to those persons only to 
whom it is advantageous. The successful industry of my 
grandfather raised him above the level of his immediate 
ancestors ; he appears to have launched into various and 
extensive dealings : even his opinions were subordinate to 
his interest ; and I find him in Flanders clothing King 
William's troops, while he would have contracted with more 
pleasure, though not perhaps at a cheaper rate, for the service 
of King James. During his residence abroad his concerns at 
home were managed by his mother Hester, an active and 
notable ^ woman. Her second husband was a widower of 
the name of Acton : they united the children of their first 



1 [Johnson defines itotable, used in this sense, as "careful, bustling". 
The Spectator (No. 150), writing of men of business, says: "I have heard 
my father say that a broad-brimmed hat, short hair, and unfolded handker- 
chief, were in his time absolutely necessary to denote a Notable Man ". 
Lamb, in his Essays of EUa, ed. 1889, p. 75, says that " the wife of a school- 
master ought to be a busy, notable creature". See also Northcote's Life of 
Reynolds, i. , 249, for Sir Joshua's "hearty laugh" at hearing Goldsmith 
described as "a notable man".] 



16 EDWARD GIBBON 

nuptials. After his ^ marriage with the daughter of Richard 
Acton, goldsmith in Leadenhall-street, he gave his own sister 
to Sir Whitmore Acton, of Aldenham ; and I am thus con- 
nected, by a triple alliance, with that ancient and loyal family 
of Shropshire baronets. It consisted about that time of seven 
brothers, all of gigantic stature ; one of whom, a pigmy of six 
feet two inches, confessed himself the last and least of the 
seven ; adding, in the true spirit of party, that such men were 
not born since the Revolution. Under the Tory administra- 
tion of the four last years of Queen Anne (1710-1714) Mr. 
Edward Gibbon was appointed one of the Commissioners of 
the Customs ; he sat at that board with Prior '^ ; but the 
merchant was better qualified for his station than the poet ; 
since Lord Bolingbroke has been heard to declare that he had 
never conversed with a man who more clearly understood the 
commerce and finances of England.^ In the year 171 6 he 
was elected one of the Directors of the South Sea Company ; 
and his books exhibited the proof that, before his acceptance 
of this fatal office, he had acquired an independent fortune of 
sixty thousand pounds. 

But his fortune was overwhelmed in the shipwreck of the 
year twenty, and the labours of thirty years were blasted in a 
single day. Of the use or abuse of the South Sea scheme, of 
the guilt or innocence of my grandfather and his brother 
Directors, lam neither a competent nor a disinterested judge. 
Yet the equity of modern times must condemn the violent 
and arbitrary proceedings, which would have disgraced the 
cause of justice, and would render injustice still more odious. 
No sooner had the nation awakened from its ffolden dream 



^ ["His" should refer to Acton the widower. It does refer, of course, to 
Gibbon's grandfather.] 

2 [Prior was appointed Commissioner in January, 1711-12 (Swift's Journal to 
Stella, Jan. 18, 31, 1711-12).] 

° [Bolingbroke, urging Queen Anne to make Prior one of the plenipoten- 
tiaries for signing the Peace of Utrecht, wrote of him : " He is the best versed 
in matters of trade of all your Majesty's servants who have been trusted in this 
secret " (Johnson's Lives of the Poets, viii., 6). Prior, in earlier years, had been 
a Commissioner of Trade, as Gibbon the historian was nearly eighty years later 
(post, p. 207).] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 17 

than a popular and. even a Parliamentary clamour demanded 
their victims : but it was acknowledged on all sides that 
the South Sea Directors, however guilty, could not be touched 
by any known laws of the land. The speech of Lord Moles- 
worth, the author of the State of Denmark, ^ may show the 
temper, or rather the intemperance, of the House of Commons. 
" Extraordinary crimes (exclaimed that ardent Whig) call 
aloud for extraordinary remedies. The Roman lawgivers had 
not foreseen the possible existence of a parricide ; but as soon 
as the first monster appeared he was sewn in a sack and cast 
headlong into the river ; and I shall be content to inflict the 
same treatment on the authors of our present ruin."^ His 
motion was not literally adopted ; but a bill of pains and 
penalties was introduced, a retroactive statute, to punish the 
offences, which did not exist at the time they were committed. 
Such a pernicious violation of liberty and law can be excused 
only by the most imperious necessity ; nor could it be defended 
on this occasion by the plea of impending danger or useful 
example. The Legislature restrained the persons of the 
Directors, imposed an exorbitant security for their appearance, 
and marked their characters with a previous note of ignominy : 
they were compelled to deliver, upon oath, the strict value of 
their estates ; and were disabled from making any transfer or 
alienation of any part of their property.^ Against a bill of 
pains and penalties it is the common right of every subject to 

1 ["In 1694 Molesworth published his Account of Denmark, in which he 
treats the Danes and their monarch with great contempt ; and takes the 
opportunity of insinuating those wild principles by which he supposes liberty 
to be established, and by which his adversaries suspect that all subordination 
and government is endangered" (Johnson's Works, vii. , 384). Steele, in The 
Plebeian, No. i, said of it : " Nothing can be better writ, or more instructive 
to any one that values liberty. ... I wish gentlemen would see there how 
Commoners were treated by the nobility, when they had the power over them " 
(Addison's Works, ed. 1856, v., 245).] 

'^IParl. Hist., vii., 683.] 

3 [T. Brodrick wrote to his brother, Lord Chancellor (Ireland) Middleton, on 
January 19, 1720-21 : " The directors had the assurance to petition to be 
heard by counsel against the bill, which was rejected with the utmost indigna- 
tion, although supported by some of our great men (which, by the way, was 
very ill relished), not only in favour of the directors, but on account of justice, 
for that no criminal (how great soever) ought to be condemned unheard ' ' 
(Coxe's Walpole, ii., 205).] 

2 



18 EDWAED GIBBON 

be heard by his counsel at the bar : they prayed to be heard ; 
their prayer was refused ; and their oppressors, who required 
no evidence, would listen to no defence. It had been at first 
proposed that one-eighth of their respective estates should be 
allowed for the future support of the Directors ; but it was 
speciously urged, that in the various shades of opulence and 
guilt such an unequal proportion would be too light for many, 
and for some might possibly be too heavy. ^ The character 
and conduct of each man were separately weighed ; but, 
instead of the calm solemnity of a judicial inquiry, the 
fortune and honour of three and thirty Englishmen were 
made the topic of hasty conversation, the sport of a lawless 
majority ; and the basest member of the committee, by a 
malicious word or a silent vote, might indulge his general 
spleen or personal animosity. Injury was aggravated by 
insult, and insult was embittered by pleasantry. Allowances 
of twenty pounds, or one shilling, were facetiously moved.^ 
A vague report that a Director had formerly been concerned 
in another project, by which some unknown persons had lost 
their money, was admitted as a proof of his actual guilt. ^ 
One man was ruined because he had dropped a foolish speech, 
that his horse should feed upon gold * ; dnother because he 
was grown so proud, that, one day at the Treasury, he had 
refused a civil answer to persons much above him.^ All were 

'^\Parl. Hist., vii,, 800.] 

2[" May 25, 1721. There was a long debate about Sir John Blunt; Mr. 
Laurence Carter moved to allow him only is." He was allowed _^i,ooo (ib., 
pp. 801-2).] 

3 ["Mr. Robert Walpole showed that Sir John Blunt was a projector of 
many years' standing, and had been the author of several fallacious schemes by 
which unwary persons had been drawn in to their utter ruin " {ib., p. 801).] 

* [" Mr. Arthur Moore moved to allow Mr. Grigsby ;;^io,ooo ; but another 
member said that since that upstart was once so prodigally vain as to bid his 
coachman feed his horses with gold, no doubt but he could feed on it himself ; 
and therefore he moved that he might be allowed as much gold as he could 
eat. After this, a motion being made for allowing him _^2,ooo, it was carried 
without a division" {ib., p. 832).] 

5 ["Mr. Sloper instanced in Sir John Blunt's behaviour one day at the 
Treasury, of which he was himself witness, when a relation of a great man 
asking Sir John for a subscription, the upstart knight, with a great deal of 
contempt, bid him go to his cousin Walpole, and desire him to sell his stock in 
the bank, and by that means he might be supplied " {ih.., p. 801).] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 19 

condemned, absent and unheard, in arbitrary fines and for- 
feitiu'es, which swept away the greatest part of their substance. 
Such bold oppression can scarcely be shielded by the omnipo- 
tence of parliament ; and yet it may be seriously questioned 
whether the judges of the South Sea Directors were the true 
and legal representatives of their country. The first Parlia- 
ment of George the First had been chosen (1715) for three 
years : the term had elapsed, the trust was expired ; and the 
four additional years (1718-1722), during which they continued 
to sit, were derived not from the people, but from themselves ; 
from the strong measure of the Septennial Bill, which can only 
be paralleled by il serar di consiglio of the Venetian history.^ 
Yet candour will own that to the same Parliament every 
Englishman is deeply indebted : the Septennial Act, so 
vicious in its origin, has been sanctioned by time, experience, 
and the national consent. Its first operation secured the 
House of Hanover on the throne, and its permanent influence 
maintains the peace and stability of government. As often 
as a repeal has been moved in the House of Commons I have 
given in its defence a clear and conscientious vote.^ 

My grandfather could not expect to be treated with more 
lenity than his companions. His Tory principles and con- 
nections rendered him obnoxious to the ruling powers : his 
name is reported in a suspicious secret ^ ; and his well-known 

1 ["The twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and jealous 
aristocracy which has reduced the Doge to a pageant and the people to a 
cipher" (Tke Decline, vi. , 382). By a decree of 1297 the admission into the 
great Council was almost entirely confined to those who had sat in it in the last 
four years and their descendants. "This law is become a marked epoch in 
Venetian history by the name of ' La Serrata del maggior Consiglio,' the 
shutting up of the Great Council " {Penny Cyclo., xxvi., 238).] 

2 [The following is a list of the motions for repeal recorded in the Pari. Hist. 
during the time Gibbon was a member : — 

Feb. I, 1775. Lost by 195 to 100 {Pari. Hist,, xviii., 216). 

March 6, 1776. Lost by 138 to 64 {ib. , p. 1237). 

March 11, 1778. Lost by 83 to 32 {ib., xix. , 873). 

May 8, 1780. Lost by 182 to 90 {j,b., xxi., 594). In this debate Burke spoke 

against the motion. 
May 17, 1782. Lost by 149 to 61 {ib. , xxiii. , 48). Fox and Pitt spoke for 

the motion ; Burke against it. 
May 16, 1783. Lost by 121 to 56 {ib. , p. 896).] 

3 [In this strange piece of English reference seems to be made to a passage 
in the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, where it is stated, 



20 EDWARD GIBBON 

abilities could not plead the excuse of ignorance or error. In 
the first proceedings against the South Sea Directors, Mr, 
Gibbon is one of the few who were taken into custody ^ ; and, 
in the final sentence^ the measure of his fine proclaims him 
eminently guilty. The total estimate which he delivered on 
oath to the House of Commons amounted to one hundred and 
six thousand five hundred and forty-three pounds five shillings 
and sixpence, exclusive of antecedent settlements.- Two 
different allowances of fifteen and of ten thousand pounds 
were moved for Mr. Gibbon ; but, on the question being put, 
it was carried without a division for the smaller sum.^ On 
these ruins, with the skill and credit, of which parliament had 
not been able to despoil him , my grandfather at a mature age 
erected the edifice of a new fortune ; the labours of sixteen 
years were amply rewarded ; and I have reason to believe that 
the second structure was not much inferior to the first. He 
had realized a very considerable property in Sussex, Hamp- 
shire, Buckinghamshire and the New River Company ; and 
had acquired a spacious house,* with gardens and lands, at 
Putney, in Surry, where he resided in decent hospitality.'' 



that ' ' the Directors to whom the secret management waS principally intrusted 
had disposed of a fictitious stock of _^574,ooo". Mr. Gibbon was one of the 
number, {^b., vii., 712.)] 

i[He and four other Directors, after being examined before a committee of 
the House of Lords, "were ordered into the custody of the Black Rod" [ib., 
vii., 702).] 

2 [Gibbon, as is shown by passages in the Memoirs omitted by Lord Sheffield, 
knew that his grandfather had ' ' found means to elude the impending stroke 
by previous settlements and secret conveyance " {Atcto. , pp. 16, 109, 215, 391).] 

^ [Pari. Hist. , vii. , 827. Nine of the Directors were allowed a still smaller 
fraction of their property. One, Hawes, whose estimate of his property was 
^^40,031, retained only ^^31 [ib., p. 834). " The estates of the Directors were 
valued at ;^2,oi4,ioo; the allowance made to them was ;^354,6oo" (Coxe's 
Walpole, i., 150).] 

4 Since inhabited by Mr. Wood, Sir John Shelley, the Duke of Norfolk, 
etc. — Sheffield. 

[In Dodsley's London, etc., v., 235 (ed. 1761), Putney is described as being 
' ' five miles south-west of London. About this village the citizens of London 
have many pretty seats ; and on Putney Heath is a public house noted for 
polite assemblies, and in the summer season for breakfasting and dancing, and 
for one of the pleasantest bowling-greens in England.''] 

5 {Decently Johnson defines as " without meanness or ostentation ". It is in 
this sense that Gibbon describes his grandfather's hospitality.] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 21 

He died in December, 1736, at the age of seventy ; and by his 
last will, at the expense of Edward, his only son (with whose 
marriage he was not perfectly reconciled,^) enriched his two 
daughters, Catherine and Hester. The former became the 
wife of Mr. Edward Elliston, an East India captain : their 
daughter and heiress Catherine was married in the year 1756 
to Edward Eliot, Esq. (now Lord Eliot), of Port Eliot, in the 
county of Cornwall ^ ; and their three sons are my nearest 
male relations on the father's side. A life of devotion and 
celibacy was the choice of my aunt, Mrs. Hester Gibbon, who, 
at the age of eighty-five, still resides in a hermitage at ClifFe, 
in Northamptonshire ^ ; having long survived her spiritual 
guide and faithful companion Mr. William Law, who, at an 
advanced age, about the year I76l, died in her house.* In 
our family he had left the reputation of a worthy and pious 
man, who believed all that he professed, and practised all that 
he enjoined. The character of a non-juror, which he main- 
tained to the last, is a sufficient evidence of his principles in 
church and state ; and the sacrifice of interest to conscience 
will be always respectable. ^ His theological writings, which 
our domestic connection has tempted me to peruse, preserve 
an imperfect sort of life, and I can pronounce with more 

i[It was no doubt " the doubtful credit " of the father of his son's wife, which 
was to end in a bankruptcy [pos^, p. 37), that displeased the old man. See 
Auto., p. III.] 

2 [He gave Gibbon his seat in ParUament. Post, p. 191. He was great- 
great-grandson of Sir John Eliot, who died in the Tower, a victim to the 
lawlessness of Charles I. He was raised to the peerage in January, 1784. The 
second Baron was created Earl of St. Germains in 1815, "dropping in this title 
his great inheritance in the name of Eliot. For Eliot as " a young Lord " see 
BosweWs /oknson, iv. , 334.] 

3 [Gibbon grew impatient of the prolonged life of "the Northamptonshire 
Saint". On Feb. 4, 1789, he asked Lord Sheffield to apply to Lord Spencer 
" to find a correspondent in that neighbourhood, who, without noise or scandal, 
might send you regular and early notice of her decline and fall" [Corres., ii., 
187). Four months later he wrote : " The Saint seems ripe for heaven " {ib., 
p. 193). For her will see ib., p. 218.] 

■*[It was in his own house that he died ; " it did not become Miss Gibbon's 
until after his death, when she received it as a bequest ; or rather a trust, from 
him". Cliffe, or King's Cliffe, as it is properly called, was his native village. 
There he was born in 1686, and thither he retired in 1740 (Overton's Law, 
pp. 5, 222, 351, 446).] 

s[For William Law and his writings see Appendix 2.] 



22 EDWAED GIBBON 

confidence and knowledge on the merits of the author. His 
last compositions are darkly tinctured by the incomprehensible 
visions of Jacob Behmen ^ ; and his discourse on the absolute 
unlawfulness of stage entertainments is sometimes quoted for 
a ridiculous intemperance of sentiment and language. — " The 
actors and spectators must all be damned : the playhouse is 
the porch of Hell^ the place of the Devil's abode, where he 
holds his filthy court of evil spirits : a play is the Devil's 
triumph, a sacrifice performed to his glory, as much as in the 
heathen temples of Bacchus or Venus, etc., etc." But these 
sallies of religious frenzy must not extinguish the praise, which 
is due to Mr. William Law as a wit and a scholar. His 
argument on topics of less absurdity is specious and acute, his 
manner is lively, his style forcible and clear ; and, had not his 
vigorous mind been clouded by enthusiasm,^ he might be 
ranked with the most agreeable and ingenious writers of the 
times. While the Bangorian controversy was a fashionable 
theme, he entered the lists on the subject of Christ's kingdom, 
and the authority of the priesthood : against the plain account 

^[" Law (said Dr. Johnson) fell latterly into the reveries of Jacob Behmen, 
whom Law alleged to have been somewhat in the same state with St. Paul, 
and to have seen umitterable things. Were it even so (said Johnson), Jacob 
would have resembled St. Paul still more, by not attempting to utter them " 
(Boswell's Johnson, ii., 122). See ib., n. 6, for Behmen or Bohme, the mystic 
shoemaker of Gorlitz, who was born in 1575 and died in 1624.] 

2 [Johnson defines euthusias?n as " a vain belief of private revelation ; a vain 
confidence of divine favour or communication ". Sprat, in 1667, in his History 
of the Royal Society, ed. 1734, p. 53, speaking of the meetings of learned men 
in the lodgings of the Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, during the 
Commonwealth, says that " the minds of young men, receiving from them first 
impressions of sober and generous knowledge, were invincibly armed against 
all the enchantments of enthusiasm ". South describes " enthusiasm " as " that 
pestilent and vile thing, which, wheresoever it has had its full course, has 
thrown both Church and State into confusion" {Sermons, iv. , 41). Dennis, in 
1696, dedicating his Letters npon Several Occasions to Charles Montague, 
wrote : "The enthusiast, the quack, the pettifogger are rewarded for torturing 
and deluding man". Bishop Hurd, in 1752, published a sermon on Tlie 
Mischiefs of Enthusiasm and Bigotry. Adam Smith, in 1776, in the Wealth of 
Nations, ed. 1811, iii., p. 216, says, "Science is the great antidote to the 
poison of enthusiasm and superstition". Gibbon wrote in 1779: "If 
Eusebius had shown that the virtues of the confessors were tinctured with 
pride and obstinacy, and that their lively faith was not exempt from some 
mixture of enthusiasm, he would have armed his readers against the excessive 
veneration for those holy men which imperceptibly degenerated into religious 
worship " [Misc. I ( 'orks, iv., 633). See/oj/, p. 147 ; and also p. 163, where he 
uses the word in the more modern sense.] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 23 

of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper he resumed the combat 
with Bishop Hoadley, the object of Whig idolatry, and Tory 
abhorrence ; and at every weapon of attack and defence the 
non-juror, on the ground which is common to both, approves 
himself at least equal to the prelate. On the appearance of 
the Fable of the Bees, he drew his pen against the licentious 
doctrine that private vices are public benefits, and morality 
as well as religion must join in his applause. Mr. Law's 
master-work, the Serious Call, is still read as a popular and 
powerful book of devotion. His precepts are rigid, but they 
are founded on the gospel ^ ; his satire is sharp, but it is di-awn 
from the knowledge of human life ; and many of his portraits 
are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a 
spark of piety in his reader's mind, he will soon kindle it to a 
flame ^ ; and a philosopher must allow that he exposes, with 
equal severity and truth, the strange contradiction between 
the faith and practice of the Christian world. Under the 
names of Flavia and Miranda he has admirably described my 
two aunts — the heathen and the Christian sister. 

My father, Edward Gibbon, was born in October, 1707 : at 
the age of thirteen he could scarcely feel that he was dis- 
inherited by act of parliament ; and, as he advanced towards 
manhood, new prospects of fortune opened to his view. A 
parent is most attentive to supply in his children the de- 
ficiencies, of which he is conscious in himself: my grand- 
father's knowledge was derived from a strong understanding 
and the experience of the ways of men ; but my father 
enjoyed the benefits of a liberal education as a scholar and 
a gentleman. At Westminster School, and afterwards at 
Emmanuel College in Cambridge, he passed through a regular 
course of academical discipline ; and the care of his learning 
and morals was intrusted to his private tutor, the same Mr. 



1 [Gibbon does not praise Law for adhering to the Gospel, but attacks the 
Gospel for justifying Law's precepts. " The Ascetics, who obeyed and abused 
the rigid precepts of the Gospel, were inspired by the savage enthusiasm which 
represents man as a criminal, and God as a tyrant " (The Decline, iv. , 57),] 

2[" Hell-fire is darted from every page of it " [Auto., p. 26).] 



24 EDWARD GIBBON 

William Law.^ But the mind of a saint ^ is above or below 
the present world ; and while the pupil proceeded on his 
travels, the tutor remained at Putney, the much-honoured 
friend and spiritual director of the whole family.^ My father 
resided some time at Paris to acquire the fashionable exercises ; 
and as his temper was warm and social, he indulged in those 
pleasures, for which the strictness of his former education had 
given him a keener relish. He afterwards visited several 
provinces of France ; but his excursions were neither long nor 
remote ; and the slender knowledge, which he had gained of 
the French language, was gradually obliterated. His passage 
through Besangon is marked by a singular consequence in the 
chain of human events. In a dangerous illness Mr. Gibbon 
was attended, at his own request, by one of his kinsmen of 
the name of Acton,^ the younger brother of a younger brother, 
who had applied himself to the study of physic. Dm'ing the 
slow recovery of his patient, the physician himself was attacked 
by the malady of love : he married his mistress, renounced 
his country and religion, settled at Besangon, and became the 
father of three sons ; the eldest of whom. General Acton, is 
conspicuous in Europe as the principal Minister of the King 



1 [Law had been a Fellow of the College. John Byrom {Remains, i. , 422) 
records how one evening in 1730, going to give Gibbon's father a lesson in 
shorthand at Cambridge, he found that "he had been playing at quadrille, 
had writ a little, but very ill ; for he makes his letters wretchedly, but reads 
pretty well. Mr. Law came in while we were at it and sat with us. . . . We 
had a bottle of wine, he drank none, I think, I two or three glasses." The next 
day Byrom recorded : ' ' Gibbon had done nothing ; what a pity he should be so 
slow, for Law's sake ! "] 

2[See/oj-i?, pp. 69, n., 71, n.'\ 

3[" March 4, 1729. We went to the Bull Inn, Putney, and sent to Mr. Law 
that we should wait on him in the afternoon ; while we were eating a mutton 
chop Mr. Law came to us, and we went with him to Mr. Gibbon's, where we 
walked in the gardens and upstairs into some rooms, the library, and then we 
sat in a parlour below with Mr. Law and young G. , who left us after a little 
while over a bottle of French wine " {Remains of John Byrom, i. , 337). 

If Miranda was Hester Gibbon the family did not obey their director, for we 
are told of her that ' ' whilst she was under her mother, she was forced to go 
patched, and loaded with a burden of fineries to the holy Sacrament ; to hear 
profaneness at the play-house, and wanton songs and love intrigues at the 
opera ; to dance at public places, that fops and rakes might admire the fineness 
of her shape, and the beauty of her motions " ( The Serious Call, ch. viii.).] 

■*[See Appendix 3.] 



MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 25 

of the Two Sicilies. By an uncle whom another stroke of 
fortune had transplanted to Leghorn, he was educated in the 
naval service of the Emperor ; and his valour and conduct in 
the command of the Tuscan frigates protected the retreat 
of the Spaniards from Algiers, ^ On my father's return to 
England he was chosen, in the general election of 1734, to 
serve in parliament for the borough of Petersfield, a burgage 
tenure, of which my grandfather possessed a weighty share, 
till he alienated (I know not why) such important property .^ 
In the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, and the Pelhams, 
pi'ejudice and society connected his son with the Tories, — 
shall I say Jacobites ? ^ or, as they were pleased to style them- 
selves, the country gentlemen? with them he gave many a 
vote ; with them he drank many a bottle."^ Without acquiring 



1 [In the Annual Register, xviii. , i, 142, an account is given of the Spanish 
attack on Algiers in 1775, " with a force that, in its modern state of barbarism 
and imbecihty, seemed sufficient to overwhehn all Africa. . . . This expedition 
must be ranked amongst the most disgraceful in its event, as well as the most 
formidable in its preparations of any in the present age" (ib., pp. 144, 146. 
See also Gent. Mag. , xlv. , 405). 

Smollett {Hist. Eng. , ed. 1800, iii. , 273), writing of the year 1748, says : ' ' All 
the powers that border on the Mediterranean, except France and Tuscany, are 
at perpetual war with the Moors of Barbary, and for that reason obliged to 
employ foreign ships for the transportation of their merchandise. . . . The 
Maritime Powers, for this puny advantage, not only tolerate the piratical states, 
but even supply them with arms and ammunition, solicit their passes, and 
purchase their forbearance with annual presents, which are, in effect, equal to a 
tribute." 

In 1816 an English fleet, under Lord Exmouth, bombarded Algiers, and 
released more than 1,000 Christian slaves (Martineau's Thirty Years' Peace, 
ed. 1849, i. , 62). In 1830 the French permanently occupied the town.] 

2 [See Appendix 4.] 

2 [Lord Yizxv&j {Memoirs, i. , 5), writing of the year 1727, says that "the 
Tories were divided into Jacobites and what were called Hanover Tories". 
Lord Bolingbroke complained in 1733 ( Works, iii. , 28) that the writers on the 
side of the ministry ' ' frequently throw out that every man is a friend to the 
Pretender who is not a friend to Walpole " . Churchill , in his Pj-ophecy of Famine 
(1763), writes of — 

"The old adherents of the Stuart race, 
Who, pointed out no matter by what name, 
Tories or Jacobites, are still the same". 

{Poems, ed. 1766, i., 123.)] 
•* [Swift, in his Journal to Stella, describes on Feb. 18, 1710-11, " the October 
Club ; that is a set of above a hundred parliament men of the country who 
drink October beer at home, and meet every evening at a tavern near the 
parliament, to consult affairs, and drive things on to extremes against the 
Whigs to call the old ministry to account, and get off five or six heads ". 



26 EDWARD GIBBON [1737-4.5 

the fame of an orator or a statesman, he eagerly joined in the 
great opposition, which, after a seven years' chase, hunted 
down Sir Robert Walpole : and in the pursuit of an unpopular 
minister, he gratified a private revenge against the oppressor 
of his family in the South Sea persecution.^ 

I was born at Putney, in the county of Surry, the 27th of 
Aprils O.S.,^ in the year one thousand seven hundred and 
thirty-seven ; the first child of the marriage of Edward Gibbon, 
esq., and of Judith Porten.^ My lot might have been that 
of a slave, a savage, or a peasant ; nor can I reflect without 
pleasure on the bounty of Nature, which cast my birth in a 
free and civilized country, in an age of science and philosophy, 
in a family of honourable rank, and decently endowed with 
the gifts of fortune.* From my birth I have enjoyed the right 



Fielding nearly forty years later took off these country gentlemen in Squire 
Western : " ' Pox ! the world is come to a fine pass indeed, if we are all fools, ex- 
cept a parcel of roundheads and Hanover rats. Pox ! I hope the times are a 
coming that we shall make fools of them, and every man shall enjoy his own. . . . 
I hope to zee it, sister, before the Hanover rats have eat up all our corn, and 
left us nothing but turnips to feed upon.' — 'I protest, brother,' cries she, 
'you are now got beyond my understanding. Your jargon of turnips and 
Hanover rats is to me perfectly unintelligible.' — 'I believe,' cries he, 'you 
don't care to hear o' em; but the country interest may succeed one day or 
other for all that' " {Tom Jones, bk. vi. , ch. 14).] 

1 [Walpole not only opposed the unjust measures of the prosecution, but was 
inclined to leniency (Coxe's Walpole, i. , 148, 151).] 

2 [Gibbon kept his birthday on May 8, N.S. {post, p. 229). The loss of the 
eleven days on the alteration of the style in September, 1752, caused him great 
surprise {Auto., p. 79). Johnson recorded in his Diary: "Jan. i, 1753, N.S. , 
which I shall use for the future" {Johnsonian Alisc, i., 13).] 

^ The union to which I owe my birth was a marriage of inclination and esteem. 
Mr. James Porten, a merchant of London, resided with his family at Putney, in 
a house adjoining to the bridge and churchyard, where I have passed many 
happy hours of my childhood. He left one son (the late Sir Stanier Porten) 
and three daughters ; Catherine, who preserved her maiden name, and of whom 
I shall hereafter speak ; another daughter married Mr. Barrel of Richmond, 
and left two sons, Edward and Robert : the youngest of the three sisters was 
Judith, my mother. — Gibbon. 

["June 3, 1736. Edward Gibbon Esq. of Putney, Member of Pari, for Peters- 
field, to Miss Porteen" {Gent. Mag., 1736, p. 355). 

"April 27, 1737. The Lady of Edw. Gibbon Esq., Member for Petersfield, 
of a son" {ib., 1737, p. 252). 

Sir Stanier Porten was Under-Secretary of State in 1776 {Corres., i., 298). 
His two children inherited most of Gibbon's property. Edward Darell was one 
of Gibbon's executors {post, p. 268).] 

*[Post, p. 239.] 



1737-45] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 27 

of primogeniture/ but I was succeeded by five brothers and 
one sister, all of whom were snatched away in their infancy. 
My five brothers, whose names may be found in the parish 
register of Putney, I shall not pretend to lament ; ^ but from 
my childhood to the present hour I have deeply and sincerely 
regi-etted my sister, whose life was somewhat prolonged, and 
whom I remember to have seen an amiable infant. The 
relation of a brother and a sister, especially if they do not 
marry, appears to me of a very singular nature. It is a 
familiar and tender friendship with a female, much about our 
own age ; an affection perhaps softened by the secret influence 
of sex, but pure from any mixture of sensual desire, and the 
sole species of Platonic love that can be indulged in with 
truth, and without danger.^ 

At the general election of 1741 , Mr. Gibbon and Mr. Delme 
stood an expensive and successful contest at Southampton, 
against Mr. Dummer and Mr, Henly, afterwards Lord Chan- 
cellor and Earl of Northington.'^ The Whig candidates had 
a majority of the resident voters ; but the corporation was 
firm in the Tory interest : a sudden creation of one hundred 

1 [" The insolent prerogative of primogeniture was unknown" to the Romans 
( The Decline, iv. , 488). ' ' The frequent partitions among brothers had almost 
ruined the princely houses of Germany, till that just but pernicious law was 
slowly superseded by the right of primogeniture" {ib., vi., 494).] 

2 [Had they lived, their shares of their father's fortune, younger children 
though they were, "would have been sufficient," he writes, "to oppress my 
inheritance" {Auto., p. 28). 

The first six children born to Sir Walter Scott's parents "all perished in 
infancy" (Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, i., 108).] 

3 [" I, who have no sisters nor brothers," wrote Johnson, •'•'look with some 
degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to be friends " 
(Boswell's 7(7^72 JO ;z, i. , 324).] 

■^[Horace Walpole wrote of Lord Northington on Dec. 29, 1763: "The 
Chancellor is chosen a governor of St. Bartholomew's Hospital : a smart gentle- 
man, who was sent with the staff, carried it in the evening, when the Chancellor 
happened to be drunk. ' Well, Mr. Bartlemy,' said his lordship, snuffing, ' what 
have you to say ? ' The man, who had prepared a formal harangue, was trans- 
ported to have so fair an opportunity given him of uttering it, and with much 
dapper gesticulation congratulated his lordship on his health, and the nation 
on enjoying such great abilities. The Chancellor stopped him short, crying, 
' By God, it is a lie ! I have neither health nor abilities ; my bad health has 
destroyed my abilities" (Walpole's Letters, iv., 154). When, a little later, 
Northington was made President of the Council, Walpole wrote : " He is never 
sober after dinner, and causes are only heard before the Council in the after- 
noon" (ib., v., 8).] 



28 EDWARD GIBBON [i7S7-45 

and seventy new freemen turned the scale ; and a supply was 
readily obtained of respectable volunteers, who flocked from ' 
all parts of England to support the cause of their political 
friends. The new parliament opened with the victory of an 
opposition;, which was fortified by strong clamour and strange 
coalitions. From the event of the first divisions, Sir Robert 
Walpole perceived that he could no longer lead a majority 
in the House of Commons, and prudently resigned (after a 
dora.inion of one-and-twenty years) the guidance of the state 
(1742). But the fall of an unpopular minister was not suc- 
ceeded, according to general expectation, by a millennium of 
happiness and virtue ; some courtiers lost their places, some 
patriots lost their characters, ^ Lord Orford's ^ offences vanished 
with his power : and after a short vibration, the Pelham govern- 
ment was fixed on the old basis of the Whig aristocracy. In 
the year 1745, the throne and the constitution were attacked 
by a rebellion, which does not reflect much honour on the 
national spirit ; since the English friends of the Pretender 
wanted courage to join his standard, and his enemies (the 
bulk of the people) allowed him to advance into the heart of 
the kingdom.^ Without daring, perhaps without desiring, to 
aid the rebels, my father invariably adhered to the Tory 
opposition. In the most critical season he accepted, for the 

1 [Pope, in the fragment of a satire entitled " One Thousand Seven Hundred 
and Forty," thus attacked Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, the leader of the 
" patriots" : — 

"Thro' clouds of passion P— — 's views are clear, 
He foams a patriot to subside a peer ; 
Impatient sees his country bought and sold, 
And damns the market where he takes no gold ". 
(Warton's Pope's Works, iv. , 347; see also Boswell's /oAwjyw, v., 239.)] 

2 [In Feb., 1742, Walpole was made Earl of Orford.] 

•^ [When Johnson and Boswell were driving to Derby in 1777, " I observed," 
writes Boswell, " that we were this day to stop just where the Highland army 
did in 1745 ". "It was a noble attempt, ' ' answered Johnson (Boswell's Johnson, 
iii., 162). Smollett tells how the English Jacobites ' ' were elevated to an insolence 
of hope which they were at no pains to conceal ". Nevertheless, " except a few 
that joined the Prince at Manchester, not a soul appeared in his behalf; one 
would have imagined that all the Jacobites of England had been annihilated " 
(Hist, of England, iii., 170). Horace Walpole wrote on Dec. 9, 1745 [Letters, 
i., 410) : " The rebels have got no recruits since their first entry into England, 
excepting one gentleman in Lancashire, one hundred and fifty common men, 
and two parsons at Manchester, and a physician from York ".] 



1737-45] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 29 

service of the party, the office of alderman in the city of 
London : but the duties were so repugnant to his inclination 
and habits that he resigned his gown at the end of a few 
months.^ The second parliament in which he sat was pre- 
maturely dissolved (1747) ; ^ and as he was unable or unwilling 
to maintain a second contest for Southampton, the life of the 
senator expired in that dissolution. 

The death of a new-born child before that of its parents 
may seem an unnatural, but it is strictly a probable, event : 
since of any given number the greater part are extinguished 
before their ninth year, before they possess the faculties of 
the mind or body.^ Without accusing the profuse waste or 
imperfect workmanship of Nature,^ I shall only observe, that 
this unfavourable chance was multiplied against my infant 
existence. So feeble was my constitution, so precarious my 
life, that, in the baptism of each of my brothers, my father's 
prudence successively repeated my Christian name of Edward, 

i[He was elected Alderman of Vintry Ward in March, 1743 [Gent. Mag., 
xiii. , 163). He resigned in June, 1745 [ib. , xv. , 333). Horace Walpole described 
the historian as the " son of a foolish alderman " [Letters, vi., 311).] 

2 [This parliament met in Dec, 1741, and was dissolved in June, 1747. 
Though it sat through six sessions, nevertheless between 1714 and 1780 there 
was only one shorter parliament — the one that after five sessions was brought to 
a close by the death of George I. At the prorogation in 1747 the King said : 
"As this parliament would necessarily determine in a short time ... I have 
judged it expedient speedily to call a new parliament " [Pai'l. Hist., xiv., 65). 
Horace Walpole wrote a few days later: "Lord Cornbury says the King's 
speech put him in mind of a gaoler in Oxfordshire who was remarkably humane 
to his prisoners ; one day he said to one of them, ' My good friend, you know 
you are to be hanged on Friday se'nnight ; I want extremely to go to London ; 
would you be so kind as to be hanged next Friday?' " (Walpole's Letters, 
XX., 88).] 

3[" On peut parier 12,245 contre 11,749 qu'un enfant qui vient de naitre ne 
vivra pas 10 ans" (Buffon's Hist. Nat., ed. 1777, supplement iv. , 158). 

" La moiti6 du genre humain p^rit avant I'age de huit ans un mois, c'est k 
dire, avant que le corps soit d^velopp^, et avant que I'ame ne se manifeste par 
la raison " [ib., p. 161). 

In 1763 Gibbon read A Treatise on the Niimber of hihabitarits in Holland 
and West Friesla7id, by Kerseboom, where it is stated that of 1,400 new-born 
children ' ' the probable number of those who will remain alive at the age of 
ten is 895" [Misc. Works, v., 413). 

By Dr. W. Ogle's tables, constructed on the basis of the death-rates of 
1871-80, not three-tenths of the children die before their ninth year (Whitaker's 
Almanack, 1899, p. 690. See post, p. 239).] 

■* [" So careful of the type she seems, 
So careless of the single life. ' ' 

[/n Memoriam, stanza liv.)] 



30 EDWARD GIBBON [1737-45 

that, in case of the departure of the eldest son, this patro- 
nymic appellation might be still perpetuated in the family. 

Uno avulso non deficit alter. ^ 

To preserve and to rear so frail a being, the most tender 
assiduity was scarcely sufficient, and my mother's attention 
was somewhat diverted by an exclusive passion for her husband, 
and by the dissipation of the world, in which his taste and 
authoi'ity obliged her to mingle. But the maternal office was 
supplied by my aunt, Mrs. Catherine Porten ; at whose name 
I feel a tear of gratitude trickling down my cheek.^ A life 
of celibacy transferred her vacant affection to her sister's first 
child : my weakness excited her pity ; her attachment was 
fortified by labour and success : and if there be any, as I 
trust there are some, who rejoice that I live, to that dear and 
excellent woman they must hold themselves indebted. Many 
anxious and solitary days did she consume in the patient trial 
of every mode of relief and amusement. Many wakeful 
nights did she sit by my bedside in trembling expectation 
that each hour would be my last. Of the various and frequent 
disorders of my childhood my own recollection is dark ; nor 
do I wish to expatiate on so disgusting a topic. Suffice it to 
say, that while every practitioner, from Sloane ^ and Ward to 
the Chevalier Taylor,'^ was successively summoned to torture 



1 [" Primo avulso, etc." {^neid, vi., 143). 
" The first thus rent, a second will arise " (Dryden).] 

2 [Worthy of respect as was Gibbon's emotion, nevertheless there is some- 
thing a little comical when we find the same words in five of the six sketches 
of his Memoirs. The tear could scarcely have five times trickled down his 
cheek. See Auto., pp. 36, in, 219, 295, 392.] 

^ [Sir Hans Sloane, whose collection of rarities, purchased for the nation by 
money raised by a lottery, was part of the foundation of the British Museum. 
" He was first physician to George I., who created him a Baronet, and to his 
present Majesty [George H.]" (Gent. Mag., 1753, p. 52).] 

4 [' ' Talking of celebrated and successful irregular practisers in physick ; Dr. 
Johnson said, ' Taylor was the most ignorant man I ever knew ; but sprightly. 
Ward the dullest. Taylor challenged me once to talk Latin with him ; (laughing). 
I quoted some of Horace, which he took to be a part of my own speech. He 
said a few words well enough.' Beauclekk. ' I remember, Sir, you said 
that Taylor was an instance how far impudence could carry ignorance '" (Bos- 
well's /ij/z^zi-o;?, iii., 389. See Horace Walpole's Ze^fer^', iii. , 190, for his epigram 
on Taylor).] 



1737-45] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 31 

or relieve me, the care of my mind was too frequently neglected 
for that of my health : compassion always suggested an excuse 
for the indulgence of the master, or the idleness of the pupil ; 
and the chain of my education was broken, as often as I was 
recalled from the school of learning to the bed of sickness. 

As soon as the use of speech had prepared my infant 
reason for the admission of knowledge, I was taught the arts 
of reading, writing, and arithmetic. So remote is the date, 
so vague is the memory of their origin in myself, that, were 
not the error corrected by analogy, I should be tempted to 
conceive them as innate. In my childhood I was praised for 
the readiness with which I could multiply and divide, by 
memory alone, two sums of several figures ; such praise en- 
couraged my growing talent ; and had I persevered in this 
line of application, I might have acquired some fame in 
mathematical studies. ^ 

After this previous institution ^ at home, or at a day school 
at Putney, I was delivered at the age of seven into the hands 
of Mr. John Kirkby, who exercised about eighteen months 
the office of my domestic tutor. His own words, which I 
shall here transcribe, inspire in his favour a sentiment of 
pity and esteem : " During my abode in my native county 
of Cumberland, in quality of an indigent curate, I used 
now and then in a summer, when the pleasantness of the 
season invited, to take a solitary walk to the sea-shore, which 
lies about two miles from the town where I lived. Here 
I would amuse myself, one while in viewing at large the 
agreeable prospect which surrounded me, and another while 
(confining miy sight to nearer objects) in admiring the vast 
variety of beautiful shells, thrown upon the beach ; some of 
the choicest of which I always picked up, to divert my little 
ones upon my return. One time among the rest, taking such 

1 [Posi, p. 95. Gibbon found his arithmetic useful in writing his history. 
"The best translators from the Greek," he wrote, "I find to be very poor 
arithmeticians " (The Decline, v., 407, n.). " Arithmetic is an excellent touch- 
stone to try the amplifications of passion and rhetoric " (i6., vi., 405, n.). See 
Johnson's Ze^/fr^-, ii., 321.] 

2 [Johnson gives instances of institution in the sense of education.'\ 



32 EDWARD GIBBON [1737-45 

a journey in my head, I sat down upon the declivity of the 
beach, with my face to [towards] the sea, which was now 
come up within a few yards of my feet ; when immediately the 
sad thoughts of the wretched condition of my family, and the 
unsuccessfulness of all endeavours to amend it, came crowd- 
ing into ray mind, which drove me into a deep melancholy, 
and ever and anon forced tears from my eyes." ^ Distress at 
last forced him to leave the country. His learning and virtue 
introduced him to my father ; and at Putney he might have 
found at least a temporary shelter, had not an act of indiscre- 
tion driven him into the world. One day reading prayers in 
the parish church, he most unluckily forgot the name of King 
George^: his patron, a loyal subject, dismissed him with 
some reluctance, and a decent reward ^ ; and how the poor 
man ended his days I have never been able to learn.* Mr. 
John Kirkby is the author of two small volumes ; Life of Auto- 
mathes (London, 1745 ^), and an English and Latin Grammar 
(London, 1746) ; which, as a testimony of gratitude, he dedi- 
cated (Nov. 5th, 1745) to my father.'' The books are before 

1 [Automathes, p. i.] 

2 [In the family of Gibbon's grandfather the name of the King was always 
omitted in family prayers [Atito., p. 17).] 

3 [Gibbon says that Kirkby was guilty of a " public refusal to name King 
George " (ib. , p. 221). If that were the case Mr. Gibbon could scarcely have 
retained him in his family. Swift's friend, Dr. Sheridan, the grandfather of 
R. B. Sheridan, lost preferment by selecting through inadvertence, as the text 
for a sermon on the anniversary of the accession of the House of Hanover, 
"Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" (Swift's Wo7-ks, ed. 1883, i. , 290).] 

■*[He died in 1754. According to the Diet, of Nat. Biog., in 1739 he had 
been made Vicar of Waldershare, and in 1741 , Rector of Blackmanstone. The 
vicarage in 1835 was worth ;^i33, but the rectory only ^44. There were but 
five inhabitants and the church was " desecrated " (Lewis's Top. Diet.).] 

^ [ TAe Capacity and Extent of the Human Understanding Exemplified i?i the 
Extraordinary Case o/" Automathes, A Young Nobleman, ivho was accident- 
ally left in his infancy tipo?i a desolate Island a?id continued nineteeii years in 
that solitary State sepa?-ate from all Huma?i Society. It was reprinted in 
Weber's Popular Romances, Edin., 1812. See Notes and Queries, 6 s., xii., 
68, 177.] 

8 [Mr. G. K. Fortescue informs me that " no copy of this book is to be found 
in the catalogues of the British Museum, Bodleian, Advocates' Library, Edin- 
burgh, Trinity College Library, Dublin. It is mentioned in Lowndes' Bio- 
grapher's Afanual apparently only on the strength of Gibbon's allusion to it. 
It is not in Watt's Bibliotheea Britannica, either in the author or in the subject 
volume. It does not appear in Book Prices Curre?it — a list of all books sold by 
public auction since Dec, 1886, nor is it in Quaritch's Catalogues or that of any 
other bookseller, so far as I have been able to see."] 



1737-45] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 33 

me : from them the pupil may judge the preceptor ; and^ 
upon the whole, his judgment will not be unfavourable. The 
grammar is executed with accuracy and skill, and I know not 
whether any better existed at the time in our language : but 
the Life of Automathes aspires to the honours of a philosophical 
fiction. It is the story of a youth, the son of a shipwrecked 
exile, who lives alone on a desert island from infancy to 
the age of manhood. A hind is his nurse ; he inherits a 
cottage, with many useful and curious instruments ; some 
ideas remain of the education of his two first years ; some 
arts are borrowed from the beavers of a neighbouring lake ; 
some truths are revealed in supernatural visions. With these 
helps, and his own industry, Automathes becomes a self- 
taught though speechless philosopher, who had investigated 
with success his own mind, the natural world, the abstract 
sciences, and the great principles of morality and religion. 
The author is not entitled to the merit of invention, since he 
has blended the English story of Robinson Crusoe with the 
Arabian romance of Hai Ebn Yokhdan, which he might have 
read in the Latin version of Pocock.^ In the Automathes I 
cannot praise either the depth of thought or elegance of style ; 
but the book is not devoid of entertainment or instruction ; 
and among several interesting passages, I would select the 
discovery of fire, which produces by accidental mischief the 
discovery of conscience.^ A man who had thought so much 
on the subjects of language and education was surely no 
ordinary preceptor : my childish years, and his hasty de- 
parture, prevented me from enjoying the full benefit of his 

1 [I owe the following note to Professor Margoliouth : " The story of Hagy 
Ibn Yakzan is a philosophical work, of which the purport is to show how a child 
left on a desert island, by observing the phenomena of nature, could arrive at 
the true religion. It was edited with translation by Pocock's son, with the title 
oi Philosophus Autodidactus, Oxford, 1671 — of course in Latin." 

Gibbon described it as "a fine, though irregular production of Arabian 
genius and philosophy" {Misc. Works, v., 234).] 

2 [The axe with which he cut down an old tree struck out sparks on a stone, 
and so set the chips alight. The next day he repeated the experiment ; the fire 
spread, and destroyed beasts and fowls. " With what horror was I seized ! 
. . . This accident gave me the first sad experience of the severe lashes of a 
self-condemning conscience" (p. 187).] 

3 



34 EDWARD GIBBON [i746 

lessons ; but they enlarged my knowledge of arithmetic, 
and left me a clear impression of the English and Latin 
rudiments. 

In my ninth year (January, 1746), in a lucid interval ^ of 
comparative health, my father adopted the convenient and 
customary mode of English education ; and I was sent to 
Kingston-upon-Thames, to a school of about seventy boys, 
which was kept by Dr. Wooddeson and his assistants. Every 
time I have since passed over Putney Common, I have always 
noticed the spot where my mother, as we drove along in the 
coach, admonished me that I was now going into the world, 
and must learn to think and act for myself. The expression 
may appear ludicrous ; yet there is not, in the course of life, 
a more remarkable change than the removal of a child from 
the luxury and freedom of a wealthy house, to the frugal diet 
and strict subordination of a school ; from the tenderness of 
parents, and the obsequiousness of servants, to the rude 
familiarity of his equals, the insolent tyranny of his seniors, 
and the rod, perhaps, of a cruel and capricious pedagogue.^ 
Such hardships may steel the mind and body against the 
injuries of fortune ; but my timid reserve was astonished by 
the crowd and tumult of the school ; the want of strength 
and activity disqualified me for the sports of the play-field ; 
nor have I foi'gotten how often in the year forty -six I was 
reviled and buffeted for the sins of my Tory ancestors.^ By 



1 [" The long dissensions of the two Houses had had lucid intervals and happy 
pauses" {History of Henry VH., Bacon's Works, ed. 1803, v., 9). 

" Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, 
Strike through and make a lucid interval. ' ' 

(Dryden, MacFlecknoe, 1. 21.) 
Gibbon may have borrowed the phrase from Johnson, who, in a letter to 
Mrs. Thrale, written during illness, said: "I snatch every lucid interval, and 
animate myself with such amusements as the time offers " (Johnson's Letters, 
ii-. 377)-] 

2 [" With the voice of a schoolmaster, or, what is often much the same, of a 
tyrant " ( Tom Jones, bk. xi. , ch. 7). Fielding wrote this in 1749, three years 
after Gibbon went to his first school. For instances of the cruelty of school- 
masters in those days see Boswell's /oh?isofi, i., 44 ; ii. , 144, 146, 157 ; iii. , 212.] 

•'[A writer in The Gent. Mag., 1794, p. 199, who signs himself " D. P." 
[Daniel Prince], says, on the authority of one of Gibbon's school-fellows, that 
" he was a most unhealthy, weakly child when at school at Kingston ".] 



1746] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 35 

the common methods of discipline, at the expense of many 
tears and some blood, I purchased the knowledge of the 
Latin syntax : and not long since I was possessed of the 
dirty volumes of Phsedrus and Coi'nelius Nepos, which I pain- 
fully construed and darkly understood. The choice of these 
authors is not injudicious. The /z'vei' of Cornelius Nepos, the 
friend of Atticus and Cicero, are composed in the style of 
the purest age : his simplicity is elegant, his brevity copious ; 
he exhibits a series of men and manners ; and with such 
illustrations, as every pedant is not indeed qualified to give, 
this classic biographer may initiate a young student in the 
history of Greece and Rome.^ The use of fables or apologues 
has been approved in every age from ancient India to modern 
Europe. They convey in familiar images the truths of moral- 
ity and prudence ; and the most childish understanding (I 
advert to the scruples of Rousseau) will not suppose either 
that beasts do speak, or that men may lie.^ A fable repre- 
sents the genuine characters of animals ; and a skilful master 
might extract from Pliny and Buifon some pleasing lessons 
of natural history, a science well adapted to the taste and 
capacity of children. The Latinity of Phsedrus is not exempt 
from an alloy of the silver age ; but his manner is concise, 
terse and sententious : the Thracian slave discreetly breathes 
the spirit of a freeman ; and when the text is sound, the 
style is perspicuous. But his fables, after a long oblivion, 
were first published by Peter Pithou from a corrupt manu- 
script. The labours of fifty editors confess the defects of the 

1 [Gibbon, in 1756, wrote of Nepos : " II excelle dans cet art, la difficult^ 
duquel rend les bons abr^gi^s si peu communs, celui de saisir les traits qui 
peignent les hommes et les ev^nemens, et de savoir laisser a I'^cart toutes les 
ciixonstances qui ne font qu'embarrasser une narration, et d^tourner I'attention 
du lecteur du principal sur I'accessoire " {Misc. Works, iv., 416).] 

2 [" Comment peut-on s'aveugler assez] pour appeller les fables la morale 
des enfans ? sans songer que I'apologue en les amusant les abuse, que s6duits 
par le mensonge ils laissent ^chapper la v6rit6, et que ce qu'on fait pour leur ^ 
rendre 1' instruction agr^able les erapeche d'en profiter. Les fables peu vent, ^ 
instruire les hommes, mais il faut dire la v^rit6 nue aux enfans ; sitot qu'on la ^ 
couvre d'un voile, ils ne se donnent plus la peine de le lever." Hereupon follows 

an analysis of La Fontaine's Le Corbeau et le Renard, showing how ignorant 
Rousseau often was of that Nature which he professed to have mastered 
{Emile, livre ii. ; CEuvres de Rousseau, ed. 1780, vii., 209).] 



36 EDWARD GIBBON [i747 

copy, as well as the value of the original ; and the schoolboy 
may have been whipt for misapprehending a passage, which 
Bentley could not restore, and which Burman could not 
explain.^ 

My studies were too frequently interrupted by sickness ; 
and after a real or nominal residence at Kingston school of 
near two years, I was finally recalled (December, 1747) by my 
mother's death, which was occasioned in her thirty-eighth 
year by the consequences of her last labour. I was too 
young to feel the importance of my loss ; and the image 
of her person and conversation is faintly imprinted in my 
memory. The affectionate heart of my aunt, Catherine 
Porten, bewailed a sister and a friend ; but my poor father 
was inconsolable, and the transport of grief seemed to 
threaten his life or his reason. I can never forget the scene 
of our first interview, some weeks after the fatal event ; the 
awful silence, the room hung with black, ^ the mid-day tapers, 
his sighs and tears ; his praises of my mother, a saint in 
heaven ; his solemn adjuration that I would cherish her 
memory and imitate her virtues ; and the fervour with which 
he kissed and blessed me as the sole surviving pledge of their 
loves. The storm of passion insensibly subsided into calmer 
melancholy. At a convivial meeting of -his friends, Mr. 
Gibbon might affect or enjoy a gleam of cheerfulness ; but 
his plan of happiness was for ever destroyed ; ^ and after the 
loss of his companion he was left alone in a world, of which 
the business and pleasure were to him irksome or insipid. 
After some unsuccessful trials he renounced the tumult of 
London and the hospitality of Putney, and buried himself in 



1 [See Appendix 5.] 

2 [On Swift's death his cousin, Mrs. Whiteway, reproached Iiis executors 
with not hanging the room in which he lay with black (Swift's Works, ed. 
1883, i., 426).] 

■" [Swift wrote to a friend who had lost his wife : ' ' Such misfortunes seem to 
break the whole scheme of man's life " [ib., xvii., 201). Johnson wrote to Mrs. 
Thrale on the death of her only son : " I know that a whole system of hopes, 
and designs, and expectations is swept away at once" (Johnson's Letters, i., 
383). To a friend he wrote on the loss of his wife : " A loss such as yours . . . 
breaks the whole system of purposes and hopes " {ib., ii. , 67).] 



1748] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 37 

the rural or rather rustic ^ solitude of Buriton/^ from which, 
during several years, he seldom emerged. 

As far back as I can remember, the house, near Putney- 
bridge and churchyard, of my maternal grandfather appears 
in the light of my proper and native home. It was there that 
I was allowed to spend the greatest part of my time, in sick- 
ness or in health, during my school vacations and my parents' 
residence in London, and finally after my mother's death. 
Three months after that event, in the spring of 1748, the 
commercial ruin of her father, Mr. James Porten, was accom- 
plished and declared. He suddenly absconded ; ^ but as his 
effects were not sold, nor the house evacuated till the Christ- 
mas following, I enjoyed during the whole year the society of 
my aunt, without much consciousness of her impending fate. 
I feel a melancholy pleasure in repeating my obligations to 
that excellent woman, Mrs. Catherine Porten, the true mother 
of my mind as well as of my health.* Her natural good sense 
was improved by the perusal of the best books in the English 
language ; and if her reason was sometimes clouded by preju- 
dice, her sentiments were never disguised by hypocrisy or 
affectation. Her indulgent tenderness, the frankness of her 
temper, and my innate rising curiosity, soon removed all 
distance between us : like friends of an equal age, we freely 
conversed on every topic, familiar or abstruse ; and it was her 
delight and reward to observe the first shoots of my young 



1 [Johnson's first definition of rustic is "rural " ; but he gives as a second 
meaning " rude, untaught, inelegant," and as a third, "brutal, savage".] 

2 [See/05<?, p. ii6.] 

•* [These three words were omitted in the second edition.] 
4 [On her death in 1786 Gibbon wrote: "A good understanding and an 
excellent heart, with health, spirits, and a competency, to live in the midst of 
her friends till the age of fourscore, and then to shut her eyes without pain or 
remorse. ... I was a puny child, neglected by my mother, starved by my 
nurse, and of whose being very little care or expectation was entertained ; 
without her maternal vigilance I should either have been in my grave, or im- 
perfectly lived a crooked ricketty \sic] monster, a burthen to myself and others. 
To her instructions I owe the first rudiments of knowledge, the first exercise of 
reason, and a taste for books, which is still the pleasure and glory of my life ; 
and though she taught me neither language nor science, she was certainly the 
most useful preceptor I ever had " {Corres., ii., 144).] 



38 EDWAKD GIBBON [i748 

ideas.^ Pain and langaor were often soothed by the voice of 
instruction and amusement ; and to her kind lessons I ascribe 
my early and invincible love of reading, which I would not 
exchange for the treasures of India. I should perhaps be 
astonished, were it possible to ascertain the date at which 
a favourite tale was engraved, by frequent repetition, in my 
memory : the Cavern of the Winds ; the Palace of Felicity ; 
and the fatal moment, at the end of three months or centuries, 
when Prince Adolphus is overtaken by Time, who had worn 
out so many pair of wings in the pursuit."^ Before I left 
Kingston school I was well acquainted with Pope's Homer 
and the Arabian Nights Entertainments, two books which will 
always please by the moving picture of human manners and 
specious miracles ; ^ nor was I then capable of discerning that 
Pope's translation is a portrait endowed with every merit, 
excepting that of likeness to the original.'' The verses of 
Pope accustomed my ear to the sound of poetic harmony ; ^ 
in the death of Hector, and the shipwreck of Ulysses, I tasted 
the new emotions of terror and pity ; and seriously disputed 
with my aunt on the vices and virtues of the heroes of the 
Trojan war. From Pope's Homer to Dryden's Virgil was an 
easy transition ; but I know not how, from some fault in the 
author, the translator, or the reader, the pious Jjlneas did not 
so forcibly seize on my imagination ; and I derived more 
pleasure from Ovid's Metamorphoses, especially in the fall of 

1 [" Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 
To teach the young idea how to shoot." 

(Thomson's ^Smjowj ; "Spring,"!. 1149.) 
For Gibbon's obligations to his aunt see Misc. Wor^s, ii. , 388, 392.] 
2 [See Appendix 6.] 

^["Speciosa . . . miracula. " 

(Horace, Ars Poet., 1. 144.) 
" Pilgrimage, and the holy wars, introduced into Europe the specious miracles 
of Arabian magic " [The Decline, iv. , 151).] 

*[" Mr. Pope, without perceiving it, has improved the theology of Homer " 
(ib., i. , 29). " It is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope," said Bentley ; " but you must 
not call it Homer " (Boswell's /ohnso?i, iii., 256, «.).] 

5[" I do not know," writes Lord Sheffield, " that Mr. Gibbon ever wrote a 
line of verse ; yet he by no means neglected the Poets, but would read them 
aloud even in his chaise when travelling, particularly Homer " (A/wt". Works, 
Preface, p. 10). See Read's Historic Studies, ii., 450, and D'Haussonville's 
Le Salon de Madame Necker, 1882, i., 49, for some of his French verses,] 



1749] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 39 

Phaethon, and the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses. My grand- 
father's flight unlocked the door of a tolerable library ; and I 
turned over many English pages of poetry and romance, of 
history and travels. Where a title attracted my eye, without 
fear or awe I snatched the volume from the shelf; and Mrs. 
Porten, who indulged herself in moral and religious specula- 
tions, was more prone to encourage than to check a curiosity 
above the strength of a boy. This year (1748), the twelfth of 
my age, I shall note as the most propitious to the growth of 
my intellectual stature. 

The relics of my grandfather's fortune afforded a bare 
annuity for his own maintenance ; and his daughter, my 
worthy aunt, who had already passed her fortieth year, was 
left destitute. Her noble spirit scorned a life of obligation 
and dependence ; and after revolving several schemes, she 
preferred the humble industry of keeping a boarding-house 
for Westminster-school,! where she laboriously earned a 
competence for her old age.^ This singular opportunity of 
blending the advantages of private and public education 
decided my father. After the Christmas holidays in January, 
1749, I accompanied Mrs. Porten to her new house in College- 
street ; and was immediately entered in the school, of which 
Dr. John Nicoll was at that time head-master.^ At first I 
was alone : but my aunt's resolution was praised ; her 
character was esteemed ; her friends were numerous and 
active : in the course of some years she became the mother of 
forty or fifty boys, for the most part of family and fortune ; 
and as her primitive habitation was too narrow, she built and 
occupied a spacious mansion in Dean's Yard. I shall always 
be ready to join in the common opinion, that our public 
schools, which have produced so many eminent characters, 
are the best adapted to the genius and constitution of the 



lit is said in the family, that she was principally induced to this undertaking 
by her affection for her nephew, whose weak constitution required her constant 
and unremitted attention. — -Sheffield. 

2[" An easy competency," Gibbon described it {Misc. Works, ii., 392).] 

^[See Appendix 7.] 



40 EDWARD GIBBON [i749 

English people. A boy of spirit may acquire a previous and 
practical experience of the world ; and his playfellows may 
be the future friends of his heart or his interest. ^ In a free 
intercourse with his equals, the habits of truth, fortitude, and 
prudence will insensibly be matured. Birth and riches are 
measured by the standard of personal merit ; and the mimic 
scene of a rebellion has displayed, in their true colours, the 
ministers and patriots of the rising generation. ^ Our semin- 
aries of learning do not exactly correspond with the precept 
of a Spartan king, " that the child should be instructed in 
the arts, which will be useful to the man^ " ; since a finished 
scholar may emerge from the head of Westminster or Eton, 
in total ignorance of the business and conversation of English 
gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century. But 
these schools may assume the merit of teaching all that they 
pretend to teach, the Latin and Greek languages : they de- 
posit in the hands of a disciple the keys of two valuable 
chests ; nor can he complain, if they are afterwards lost or 
neglected by his own fault. The necessity of leading in equal 
ranks so many unequal powers of capacity and application, 

1 [Fielding wrote in 1752: "Much the greater part of our lads of fashion 
return from school at fifteen or sixteen very little wiser, and not at all the better, 
for having been sent thither" (Fielding's Works, ed. 1806, x. , 116). 

In the same year Chesterfield wrote to a friend : "If you would have your 
son be a very learned man, you must certainly send him to some great school ; 
but if you would have him be a better thing, a very honest man, you should have 
him a portie of your own inspection. At those great schools the heart is wholly 
neglected by those who ought to form it " (Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iv., 

243)- 

■ For Johnson's opinion of public and private education see Boswell s Johnson, 
ii., 407 ; iii. , 12 ; iv. , 312 ; v., 85.] 

^[Johnson writes in the Life of Addison : " The practice of barring-out was 
a savage licence, practised in many schools to the end of the last century, by 
which the boys, when the periodical vacation drew near, growing petulant at 
the approach of liberty, some days before the time of regular recess, took 
possession of the school, of which they barred the doors, and bade their master 
defiance from the windows". Johnson goes on to mention a story which had 
reached him that one such barring-out at Lichfield School "was planned and 
conducted by Addison" (Johnson's Works, vii. , 419).] 

'^[" 'EttiCtjtowtos de twos riva Se7 fxayddveiv tovs iraWas, 
ravr' (eiirev) oTs Kal &i'Spes yev6fJi.evoL xP'^oi'Tai." 

( Agesilaus. ) 
' ' ' Cuidam autem quaerenti quaenam pueris discenda forent, Ea respondit 
quibus et viri sint usuri. " 

{^Apophthegmata Graeca Regiim et Ducufji, Hen. Steph. , 1568, pp. 306, 307.)] 



1750-1] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 41 

will prolong to eight or ten years the juvenile studies, which 
might be despatched in half that time by the skilful master 
of a single pupil. Yet even the repetition of exercise and 
discipHne contributes to fix in a vacant mind the verbal 
science of grammar and prosody : and the private or voluntary 
student, who possesses the sense and spirit of the classics, may 
offend, by a false quantity, the scrupulous ear of a well-flogged 
critic. For myself, I must be content with a very small share 
of the civil and literary fruits of a public school. In the space 
of two years (1749, 1750) interrupted by danger and debility, 
I painfully climbed into the third form ; and my riper age 
was left to acquire the beauties of the La,tin, and the rudi- 
ments of the Greek tongue. Instead of audaciously mingling 
in the sports, the quarrels, and the connections of our little 
world, I was still cherished at home under the maternal wing 
of my aunt ; and my removal from Westminster long preceded 
the approach of manhood. 

The violence and variety of iny complaint, which had 
excused my frequent absence from Westminster School, at 
length engaged Mrs. Porten, with the advice of physicians, to 
conduct me to Bath : at the end of the Michaelmas vacation 
(1750) she quitted me with reluctance, and I remained several 
months under the care of a trusty maid-servant. A strange 
nervous affection, which alternately contracted my legs, and 
produced, without any visible symptoms, the most excruciat- 
ing pain, was ineffectually opposed by the various methods of 
bathing and pumping. From Bath I was transported to 
Winchester, to the house of a physician ; and after the failure 
of his medical skill, we had again recourse to the virtues of 
the Bath waters. During the intervals of these fits, I moved 
with my father to Buriton and Putney; and a short un- 
successful trial was attempted to renew my attendance at 
Westminster School. But my infirmities could not be recon- 
ciled with the hours and discipline of a public seminaiy ; and 
instead of a domestic tutor, who might have watched the 
favourable moments, and gently advanced the progress of my 
learning, my father was too easily content with such occasional 



42 EDWAED GIBBON [i752 

teachers as the different places of my residence could supply. 
I was never forced, and seldom was I persuaded, to admit 
these lessons : yet I read with a clergyman at Bath some odes 
of Horace, and several episodes of Virgil, which gave me an 
imperfect and transient enjoyment of the Latin poets. It 
might now be apprehended that I should continue for life an 
illiterate cripple ; but, as I approached my sixteenth year. 
Nature displayed in my favour her mysterious energies : my 
constitution was fortified and fixed ; and my disorders, instead 
of growing with my growth and strengthening with my 
strength, most wonderfully vanished. I have never possessed 
or abused the insolence of health ^ : but since that time few 
persons have been more exempt from real or imaginary ills, 
and, till I am admonished by the gout, the reader will no 
more be troubled with the history of my bodily complaints. 
My unexpected recovery again encouraged the hope of my 
education ; and I was placed at Esher, in Surrey, in the house 
of the Reverend Mr. Philip Francis, in a pleasant spot, which 
promised to unite the various benefits of air, exercise, and 
study (January, 175?). The translator of Horace might have 
taught me to relish the Latin poets, had not my friends dis- 
covered in a few weeks, that he preferred the pleasures of 
London, to the instruction of his pupils. ^ My father's per- 
plexity at this time, rather than his prudence, was urged to 
embrace a singular and desperate measure. Without prepara- 
tion or delay he carried me to Oxford ^ ; and I was matricu- 



^[Posi, p. 241. For his neglect of his health see post, p. 258.] 

^[" Dr. Johnson said : ' The lyrical part of Horace never can be perfectly 
translated ; so much of the excellence is in the numbers and the expression. 
Francis has done it the best ; I'll take his, five out of six, against them all' " 
[Qo&vfelVs fohnsoit, iii., 356). 

Francis was the father of Sir Philip Francis, vi'ho is commonly supposed to 
have been Juiiius.'\ 

3 [In a note at the end of the MS. of Gibbon's Memoirs in the British 
Museum it is stated that the greatest number of matriculations at Oxford 
between 1700 and 1800 was 372 — in the year 1717 ; the least number was 146 
— in 1756. In 1750 190 matriculated. According to another MS. , drawn up in 
1807 by the Registrar of Cambridge University, the greatest number of matricula- 
tions at Cambridge between 1759 and 1800 was 210 — in 1792 ; the least number 
was 92 — in 1766. 

The population of Oxford in 1750 (excluding the inhabitants of the colleges) 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 43 

lated in the university as a gentleman commoner of Magdalen 
college, before I had accomplished the fifteenth year of my 
age (April 3, 1752). 

The curiosity, which had been implanted in my infant 
mind, was still alive and active ; but my reason was not 
sufficiently informed to understand the value, or to lament 
the loss of three precious years from my entrance at West- 
minster to my admission at Oxford. Instead of repining at 
my long and frequent confinement to the chamber or the 
couch, I secretly rejoiced in those infirmities, which delivered 
me from the exercises of the school, and the society of my 
equals. As often as I was tolerably exempt from danger and 
pain, reading, free desultory reading, was the employment and 
comfort of my solitary hours. At Westminster, my aunt sought 
only to amuse and indulge me ; in my stations at Bath and 
Winchester, at Buriton and Putney, a false compassion re- 
spected my sufferings ; and I was allowed, without controul 
or advice, to gratify the wanderings of an unripe taste. My 
indiscriminate appetite subsided by degrees in the historic 
line 1 ; and since philosophy has exploded all innate ideas and 
natural propensities,^ I must ascribe this choice to the 
assiduous perusal of the Universal History, as the octavo 
volumes successively appeared.^ This unequal work, and a 

was 8,292 [Gent. Mag., 1752, p. 347). "The north side of the city is open to 
corn-fields and enclosures for many miles together, without an hill to intercept 
the free current of air, which purifies it from all noxious vapours. The soil is 
dry, being on a fine gravel, which renders it as healthful and pleasant a spot as 
any in the Kingdom " [Pocket Companion for- Oxford, ed. 1762, p. 2). 

' ' Oxford stands in a beautiful plain and sweet air " {Gent. Mag. , 1765, p. 73). ] 

i[" Johnson . . . was at all times prompt to repress colloquial barbarisms 
such as . . . the civil line, the banking li?ie" ifiosmQlVs Johnson, iii., 196).] 
2 [Dr. Watts wrote in 1725 : ' ' There has been a great controversy about 
the origin of ideas, viz., whether any of our ideas are innate or no, that is, born 
with us, and naturally belonging to our minds. Mr. Locke utterly denies it ; 
others as positively affirm it " [Logic, i., 3, i. ). 

For "a strong example of the innate difference of characters" see The 
Decline, ii. , 256. See also /oj^, p. 143.] 

^[To Gibbon might be applied Dryden's lines — 

" For what in Nature's dawn the child admired, 
The youth endeavoured, and the man acquired ? ' ' 

[Epistle to Kneller, 1. 130. ) 
In the Register of Books in The Gent. Mag. for July, 1740, p. 360, is " An 



44 EDWAKD GIBBON [i752 

treatise of HearnCj the Ductor historicus- ^ referred and intro- 
duced me to the Greek and Roman historians, to as many at 
least as were accessible to an English reader. All that I 
could find wei'e greedily devoured, from Littlebury's lame 
Herodotus and Spelman's valuable Xenophon, to the pompous 
folios of Gordon's Tacitus and a ragged Procopius of the 
beginning of the last century. The cheap acquisition of so 
much knowledge confirmed my dislike to the study of 
languages ; and I argued with Mrs. Porten, that, were I 
master of Greek and Latin, I must interpret to myself in 
English the thoughts of the original, and that such ex- 
temporary versions must be inferior to the elaborate transla- 
tions of professed scholars ; a silly sophism, which could not 
easily be confuted by a person ignoi*ant of any other language 
than her own. From the ancient I leaped to the modern 
world : many crude lumps of Speed, Rapin, Mezeray, Davila, 
Machiavel, Father Paul, Bower, &c., I devoured like so many 
novels ; and I swallowed with the same voracious appetite the 
descriptions of India and China, of Mexico and Peru. 

My first introduction to the historic scenes, which have 
since engaged so many years of my life, must be ascribed 
to an accident. In the summer of 1751, I accompanied my 
father on a visit to Mr. Hoare's, in Wiltshire ; but I was less 

Universal History from the earliest Account of Time to the present. In five 
volumes in folio. Price ;^io los. 6d." In the Register for March, 1749, p. 
144, is " Universal History, in 8vo, vol, xx., and last. Price 5s. in boards." 

Gibbon in The Decline, v., 40, describes its authors as "these learned 
bigots," and v., 455, as "its self-sufficient compilers". On p. 396 he says of 
the 850 folio pages given to Mahomet and the Caliphs: "The dull mass is 
not quickened by a spark of philosophy or taste ". On p. 318 he writes : "A 
nameless doctor has formally demonstrated the truth of Christianity by the 
independence of the Arabs ". The list of the writers of the Universal History 
drawn up by Johnson (Johnson's Letters, ii., 431) shows that this "nameless 
doctor" was John Swinton. He it was who preaching to some convicts who 
were to be hanged next morning, ' ' told them that he should give them the 
remainder of what he had to say on the subject the next Lord's Day" \^os- 
\^q\Vs Joh?ison, i., 273). 

Charles Lamb, who at the age of six was taken to the theatre for the first 
time, and saw Artaxerxes, writes: "I had dabbled a little in the Universal 
History — the ancient part of it — and here was the Court of Persia" (Essays of 
Elia, ed. 1889, p. iii).] 

i[For this work and those mentioned on this and the next page see 
Appendix 8.] 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 45 

delighted with the beauties of Stourhead, than with discover- 
ing in the Ubrary a common book, the Continuation of 
Eachard's Roman History, which is indeed executed with 
more skill and taste than the previous work. To me the 
reigns of the successors of Constantine were absolutely new ; 
and I was immersed in the passage of the Goths over the 
Danube,^ when the summons of the dinner-bell reluctantly 
dragged me from my intellectual feast. This transient glance 
served rather to irritate than to appease my curiosity ; and as 
soon as I returned to Bath I procured the second and third 
volumes of Howell's History of the World, which exhibit the 
Byzantine period on a larger scale. Mahomet and his Saracens 
soon fixed my attention ; and some instinct of criticism directed 
me to the genuine sources. Simon Ockley, an original in 
every sense, first opened my eyes ; and I was led from one 
book to another, till I had ranged round the circle of 
Oriental history. Before I was sixteen, I had exhausted all 
that could be learned in English of the Arabs and Persians, 
the Tartars and Turks ; and the same ardour urged me to 
guess at the French of D'Herbelot,^ and to construe the 
barbarous Latin of Pocock's Abulfaragius. Such vague and 
multifarious reading could not teach me to think, to write, 
or to act ; and the only principle that darted a ray of light 
into the indigested chaos, was an early and rational appli- 
cation to the order of time and place. The maps of Cellarius 
and Wells imprinted in my mind the picture of ancient 
geography : from Strauchius I imbibed the elements of chron- 
ology : the Tables of Helvicus and Anderson, the Annals of 
Usher and Prideaux distinguished the connection of events, 
and I engraved the multitude of names and dates in a clear 
and indelible series. But in the discussion of the first ages 
I overleaped the bounds of modesty and use. In my childish 
balance I presumed to weigh the systems of Scaliger and 
Petavius, of Marsham and Newton,^ which I could seldom 



^ [See The Decline, iii., 94.] 
'{Post, p. 63, nJ] "^{Ibid., pp. 63, 129.] 



46 EDWARD GIBBON [i752 

study in the originals ; and my sleep has been disturbed by 
the difficulty of reconciling the Septuagint with the Hebrew 
computation.^ I arrived at Oxford with a stock of erudition, 
that might have puzzled a doctor,^ and a degree of ignorance, 
of which a schoolboy would have been ashamed. 

At the conclusion of this first period of my life, I am 
tempted to enter a protest against the trite and lavish praise 
of the happiness of our boyish years, which is echoed with 
so much affectation in the world. ^ That happiness I have 
never known, that time I have never regretted ; and were 
my poor aunt still alive, she would bear testimony to the 
early and constant uniformity of my sentiments. It will 

i["The primitive church of Antioch computed almost 6000 years from the 
creation of the world to the birth of Christ. Africanus, Lactantius, and the 
Greek Church have reduced that number to 5500, and Eusebius has contented 
himself with 5200 years. These calculations were formed on the Septuagint, 
which was universally received during the six first centuries. The authority of 
the Vulgate and of the Hebrew text has determined the Moderns, Protestants 
as well as Catholics, to prefer a period of about 4000 years ; though in the 
study of profane antiquity they often find themselves straitened by those narrow 
limits " [The Decline, ii., 23). " I regret this chronology [Africanus's], so far 
preferable to our double and perplexed method of counting backwards and 
forwards the years before and after the Christian era " [ib., iv., 269).] 

2 [See Auto., p. 57, for Gibbon in his boyhood, "surrounded with a heap 
of folios". Pattison writes of F. A. Wolf's entrance at Gottingen in 1777: 
" Since Gibbon, who took to Magdalen ' a stock of learning which might have 
puzzled a doctor,' so extraordinary a student had, perhaps, never entered a 
university" (Pattison's Essays, ed. 1889, i., 348).] 

"^ [" Dr. Johnson maintained that a boy at school was the happiest of human 
beings. I supported a different opinion, from which I have never yet varied, 
that a man is happier ; and I enlarged upon the anxiety and sufferings which 
are endured at school. Johnson. ' Ah ! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so 
severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him. Men have a 
solicitude about fame ; and the greater share they have of it, the more afraid 
they are of losing it ' " (Boswell's Johnson, i., 451). 

Four years before Johnson said this, Adam Smith had written : " Compared 
with the contempt of mankind, all other external evils are easily supported" 
{Theory of Moral Sentime7its, ed. 1801, i. , 119). 

Cowper had been happier than Gibbon. "My imagination," he wrote, 
" set me down in the sixth form at Westminster. I fancied myself once more 
a schoolboy, a period of life in which, if I had never tasted true happiness, I 
was at least equally unacquainted with its contrary" (Southey's Coivpei; i. , 
15). In The Task, i. , 116, writing of his schoolboy days, he says : — 

' ' I still remember, nor without regret 

Of hours that sorrow since has much endear'd," etc. 

Sir Walter Scott, who had been at the same school as Boswell, sided with 
Gibbon. "Did I ever," he wrote, "pass unhappy years anywhere? None 
that I remember, save those at the High School, which I thoroughly detested 
on account of the confinement " (Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, viii., 368).] 



1752] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 47 

indeed be replied, that / am not a competent judge ; that 
pleasure is incompatible with pain ; that joy is excluded from 
sickness ; and that the felicity of a schoolboy consists in the 
perpetual motion of thoughtless and playful agility, in which 
I was never qualified to excel. My name, it is most true, 
could never be enrolled among the sprightly race, the idle 
progeny of Eton or Westminster, 

Who foremost may [now] delight to cleave, 
With pliant arm, the [thy] glassy wave, 
Or urge the flying ball.^ 

The poet may gaily describe the short hours of recreation ; but 
he forgets the daily tedious labours of the school, which is 
approached each morning- with anxious and reluctant steps. ^ 
A traveller, who visits Oxford or Cambridge, is surprised and 
edified by the apparent order and tranquillity that prevail 
in the seats of the English muses. In the most celebrated 
universities of Holland, Germany, and Italy, the students, 
who swarm from different countries, are loosely dispersed in 
private lodgings at the houses of the burghers : they dress 
according to their fancy and fortune ; and in the intemperate 
quarrels of youth and wine, their stvords, though less frequently 
than of old, are sometimes stained with each other's blood.^ 
The use of arms is banished fi'om our English universities ; 
the uniform habit of the academics, the square cap, and black 

1 [Gray's Eio?t College. ^ 

2 [" Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, 
And shining morning face, creeping like snail 
Unwillingly to school." 

[As You Like It, Act ii., Sc. 7, 1. 145.)] 
•^ [C. E. Jordan thus wrote of Oxford in 1733 : " Je logeai a Oxford au 
Blow Board [? Blue Boar], ou on est fort bien. La villa est petite, et il y a 
peu de belles maisons. Les Colleges y sont magnifiques. Les dehors de la 
ville sont tres riants. . . . Le nombre des ^tudiants d'Oxford va a 2,000. lis 
ne portent ni baton, ni 6pfe. Tous portent la robe et le bonnet quarr6 ; 
I'habillement differe suivant les d6gr6s et la quality. Un ^tudiant vit fort 
agr^ablement dans un College : il est bien log6 et nourri ; et sa d^pense monte 
(s'il salt oeconomiser) par rapport k I'entretien a 100 pieces. Tout est bien 
r6gl6 dans cette Acad^mie, ou plutot University ; les dfeordres n'y regnent pas 
comme dans celles d'AUemagne " [Histoire d'un Voyage Littdraire, ed. 1735, 
p. 174). Jordan, comparing Leipsic with Halle, says : " Les manieres y sont 
plus polies, les ^tudians ne s'y livrent pas a una debauche aussi crasse ; ils y 
sont fort galants, ils sacrifient plus a Venus qu'a Bacchus" {ib., p. 9).] 



48 EDWARD GIBBON [i752 

gown, is adapted to the civil and even clerical professions ; 
and from the doctor in divinity to the under-graduate, the 
degrees of learning and age are externally distinguished. 
Instead of being scattered in a town, the students of Oxford 
and Cambridge are united in colleges ; their maintenance is 
provided at their own expense, or that of the founders ; and 
the stated hours of the hall and chapel represent the dis- 
cipline of a regular, and, as it were, a religious community. ^ 
The eyes of the traveller are attracted by the size or beauty of 
the public edifices ; and the principal colleges appear to be so 
many palaces, which a liberal nation has erected and endowed 
for the habitation of science. My own introduction to the uni- 
versity of Oxford forms a new aera in my life ; and at the distance 
of forty years I still remember my first emotions of surprise and 
satisfaction. In my fifteenth year I felt myself suddenly 
raised from a boy to a man : the persons, whom I respected 
as my superiors in age and academical rank, entertained me 
with every mark of attention and civility ; and my vanity 
was flattered by the velvet cap and silk gown, which dis- 
tinguish a gentleman commoner ^ from a plebeian student. 
A decent allowance, more money than a schoolboy had ever 
seen, was at my own disposal ; and I might command, among 
the tradesmen of Oxford, an indefinite and dangerous latitude 
of credit. A key was delivered into my hands, which gave 
me the free use of a numerous and learned library, my apart- 
ment consisted of three elegant and well-furnished rooms 
in the new building, a stately pile, of Magdalen College, 



1 [" Their institutions, although somewhat fallen from their primaeval 
simplicity, are such as influence in a particular manner the moral conduct of 
their youth ; and in this general depravity of manners and laxity of principles, 
pure religion is nowhere more strictly inculcated. . . . They render their 
students virtuous, at least by excluding all opportunities of vice, and by teaching 
them the principles of the Church of England confirm them in those of true 
Christianity" {The Idler, Dec. 2, 1758, No. 33).] 

2 [Sainte-Beuve describes him as entering "en qualite d'6tudiant ordinaire" 
{Causeries, viii. , 436). 

Mrs. Delany (Aufo. atid Co7'res., iii., 583), writing in 1760 about her nephew 
going to Oxford, says: "I hope he will not fall into any vulgar error, now 
much encouraged at Oxford, that 'peers are not worth being acquainted 
with ' ".] 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 49 

and the adjacent walks, had they been frequented by Plato's 
disciples, might have been compared to the Attic shade on 
the banks of the Ilissus. Such was the fair prospect of my 
entrance (April 3, 1752) into the university of Oxford.^ 

A venerable prelate, whose taste and erudition must reflect 
honour on the society in which they were formed, has drawn 
a very interesting picture of his academical life."^ " I was 
educated (says Bishop Lowth) in the university of Oxford. 
I enjoyed all the advantages, both public and private, which 
that famous seat of learning so largely affords. I spent many 
years in that illustrious society, in a well-regulated course 
of useful discipline and studies, and in the agreeable and im- 
proving commerce of gentlemen and of scholars ; in a society 
where emulation without envy, ambition without jealousy, 
contention without animosity, incited industry, and awakened 
genius ; where a liberal pursuit of knowledge, and a genuine 
[generous] freedom of thought, was raised, encouraged, and 
pushed forward by example, by commendation, and by au- 
thority. I breathed the same atmosphere that the Hookers, 
the Chillingworths, and the Lockes had breathed before ; 
whose benevolence and humanity were as extensive as their 
vast genius and comprehensive knowledge ; who always treated 
their adversaries with civility and respect ; who made candour, 
moderation, and liberal judgment as much the rule and law 
as the subject of their discourse. [. . .] And do you reproach 
me with my education in this place, and with my relation to 
this most respectable body, which I shall always esteem my 
greatest advantage and my highest honour ? " ^ I transcribe 
with pleasm-e this eloquent passage, without examining what 
benefits or what rewards were derived by Hooker, or Chilling- 
worth, or Locke, from their academical institution ; without 
inquiring, whether in this angry controversy the spirit of 



^ [See Appendix 9.] 

2 [In A Letter to the Right Revei-end Author of The Divine Legation, etc. 
By a late Professor of the University of Oxford. 4th ed. London, 1766, p. 64. 
The first edition is dated Aug. 31, 1765.] 

"^ [See Appendix 10.] 

4 



50 EDWAED GIBBON [i752 

Lowth himself is purified from the intolerant zeal/ which 
Warburton had ascribed to the genius of the place. ^ It may 
indeed be observed, that the atmosphere of Oxford did not 
agree with Mr. Locke's constitution ; and that the philosopher 
justly despised the academical bigots, who expelled his person 
and condemned his principles.^ The expression of gratitude 
is a virtue and a pleasure : a liberal mind will delight to 
cherish and celebrate the memory of its parents ; and the 
teachers of science are the parents of the minds. I applaud 
the filial piety, which it is impossible for me to imitate ; 
since I must not confess an imaginary debt, to assume the 
mei'it of a just or generous retribution. To the university of 
Oxford / acknowledge no obligation ; and she will as cheer- 
fully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her 
for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College ; 
they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofit- 
able of my whole life * : the reader will pronounce between 

i[" In the time of Job the crime of impiety was punished by the Arabian 
magistrate (c. xiii. , vv. 26-8). I blush for a respectable prelate {De Poesi 
Hebrceorum, jjp. 650, 651, edit. Michaelis ; and Letter of a Late Professor in the 
University of Oxford, pp. 15, 53) who justifies and applauds this patriarchal 
inquisition " {The Decline, v., 354 ; see also Auto., p. 304).] 

^ [I do not think that these precise words are used by Warburton. Thomas 
Warton uses them in The Idler, No. 33, where, speaking of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, he says : ' ' There is at least one very powerful incentive to learning ; 
I mean the Genius of the place" . Dryden adjured Oxford " by the sacred 
Genius of this place" {Works, ed. 1885, x., 386). Gibbon says of Jerusalem : 
' ' Sages and heroes . . . have confessed the inspiration of the genius of the 
place" {The Decline, ii., 455).] 

3 [See Appendix 11.] 

4 [" Bentham spoke of the university with asperity to the end of his days " 
(Bentham's Works, x., 39). Southey, who entered Balhol College in 1793, wrote 
in 1807 : " Of all the months in my life (happily they did not amount to years) 
those which were passed at Oxford were the most unprofitable. What Greek 
I took there, I literally left there, and could not help losing ; and all I learnt 
was a little swimming and a little boating. I never remember to have dreamt 
of Oxford — a sure proof how little it entered into my moral being ; — of school, 
on the contrary, I dream perpetually" (Southey's Life and Corres., iii., 85). 
When he was at College he wrote : " With respect to its superiors, Oxford only 
exhibits waste of wigs and want of wisdom ; with respect to under-graduates, 
every species of abandoned excess. . . . Never shall child of mine enter a 
public school or a university" (id., i., 177, 178). "It is curious," writes Mr. 
Francis Darwin, "that my father, often spoke of his Cambridge hfe as if it had 
been so much time wasted, forgetting that although the set studies of the place 
were barren enough for him, he yet gained in the highest degree the best 
advantages of a university life — the contact with men and an opportunity of 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 51 

the school and the scholar ; but I cannot affect to believe that 
Nature had disqualified me for all literary pursuits. The 
specious and ready excuse of my tender age, imperfect pre- 
paration, and hasty departure, may doubtless be alleged ; nor 
do I wish to defraud such excuses of their proper weight. 
Yet in my sixteenth year I was not devoid of capacity or 
application ; even my childish reading had displayed an early 
though blind propensity for books ; and the shallow flood 
might have been taught to flow in a deep channel and a clear 
stream. In the discipline of a well-constituted academy, 
under the guidance of skilful and vigilant professors, I should 
gradually have risen from translations to originals, from the 
Latin to the Greek classics, from dead languages to living 
science : my hours would have been occupied by useful 
and agreeable studies, the wanderings of fancy would have 
been restrained, and I should have escaped the temptations 
of idleness, which finally precipitated my departure from 
Oxford.i 

Perhaps in a separate annotation I may coolly examine the 
fabulous and real antiquities of our sister universities, a ques- 
tion which has kindled such fierce and foolish disputes among 
their fanatic sons.^ In the meanwhile it will be acknowledged 



mental growth." He wrote to Sir J. D. Hooker in 1847: " I am glad you 
like my Alma Mater, which I despise heartily as a place of education, but love 
from many most pleasant recollections " {Life of Charles Da7-win, ed. 1892, 
P- 105).] 

^ [' ' No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are 
really worth the attending, as is well known wherever any such lectures are 
given" {Wealth of Nations, ed. 1811, iii., 172).] 

2 [Milton, in his History of England, mentions the reported foundation of 
Cambridge by Sigebert, King of East Angles, and of Oxford by Alfred 
(Milton's Works, ed. 1806, iv., 134, 183). Ayhffe, in The Ancient and Present 
State of the University of Oxford, ed. 1723, i. , 9-13, says that " the traditions 
touching the commencement of these two Universities, long contending with 
each other on the score of antiquity, were at first the inventions of the monks, 
receiving their education in these respective schools of learning, and were after- 
wards imposed on the world for the sake of victory ". Oxford, he says, 
according to one writer, was founded by some ' ' excellent philosophers, with 
the Trojans coming out of Greece under Brute " ; while Cambridge owed 
its foundation to " King Cantaber, a Spaniard, driven out of his own country 
by his subjects, 375 years B.c," Ayhffe himself says that " it is probable that 
the University of Oxford was founded soon after this kingdom embraced the 
Christian rehgion ". Alfred did nothing more than "restore this University 



52 EDWARD GIBBON [i752 

that these venerable bodies are sufficiently old to partake of 
all the prejudices and infirmities of age. The schools of 
Oxford and Cambridge were founded in a dark age of false 
and barbarous science ; and they are still tainted with the 
vices of their origin. Their primitive discipline was adapted 
to the education of priests and monks ; and the government 
still remains in the hands of the clergy, an order of men 
whose manners are remote from the present world, and whose 
eyes are dazzled by the light of philosophy.^ The legal 
incorporation of these societies by the charters of popes ^ and 
kings had given them a monopoly of the public instruction ; 
and the spirit of monopolists is narrow, lazy, and oppressive ; 
their work is more costly and less productive than that of 
independent artists ; and the new improvements so eagerly 

to its pristine glory. . . . King Edward the Elder, his son, restored the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge, confirming to the Doctors and Scholars there all their 
privileges." 

" The Divinity Lectures of Robert Pullein," wrote Gibbon, " in the Abbey 
of Oseney (1129-1135) I consider as the punctum saliens oi the University." 
He quotes a passage about a colony of monks opening public schools at 
Cambridge in 1109, but adds "curious but spurious" {Misc. Woj-ks, v., 
522, 523).] 

^ [" The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools of Athens than the 
establishment of a new religion, whose ministers superseded the exercise of 
reason, resolved every question by an article of faith, and condemned the 
infidel or sceptic to eternal flames " {The Decline, iv., 265). Gibbon, writing 
of " Christian Geography" in the sixth century, says : " The study of nature 
was the surest symptom of an unbelieving mind" {ib., iv. , 234). 

' ' With the liberty of Europe its genius awoke, but the first efforts of its 
growing strength were consumed in vain and fruitless pursuits. . . . The two 
great sources of knowledge, nature and antiquity, were neglected. . . . The 
numerous vermin of mendicant friars, Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustins, 
Carmelites, who swarmed in this century [the thirteenth], with habits and 
institutions variously ridiculous, disgraced religion, learning, and common 
sense. They seized on scholastic philosophy as a science peculiarly suited to 
their minds ; and, excepting only Friar Bacon, they all preferred words to 
things. The subtle, the profound, the irrefragable, the angelic, and the 
seraphic Doctor acquired those pompous titles by filling ponderous volumes 
with a small number of technical terms, and a much smaller number of ideas. . 
Universities arose in every part of Europe, and thousands of students employed 
their lives upon these grave folhes " ( Misc. Works, iii., 19-29). 

"To speak freely, it were much better there were not one divine in the 
universities, no school divinity known, the idle sophistry of monks, the canker 
of religion " (Milton's Works, iii., 388).] 

2[" In 1459 the University [of Basil] was founded by Pope Pius II. (.(Eneas 
Sylvius), who had been Secretary to the Council [of Basil]. But what is a 
Council or an University to the presses of Froben and the studies of 
Erasmus?" {The Decline, vii., 100.)] 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 53 

grasped by the competition of freedom, are admitted with 
slow and sullen reluctance in those proud corporations, above 
the fear of a rival, and below the confession of an error. We 
can scarcely hope that any reformation will be a voluntary 
act ; and so deeply are they rooted in law and prejudice, that 
even the omnipotence of parliament would shrink from an 
inquiry into the state and abuses of the two universities.^ 

The use of academical degrees, as old as the thirteenth 
century, is visibly borrowed from the mechanic corporations ; 
in which an apprentice, after serving his time, obtains a testi- 
monial of his skill, and a licence to practise his trade and 
mystery. 2 It is not my design to depreciate those honours, 
which could never gratify or disappoint my ambition ; and I 
should applaud the institution, if the degrees of bachelor or 
licentiate were bestowed as the reward of manly and success- 
ful study : if the name and rank of doctor or master were 
strictly reserved for the professors of science, who have 
approved their title to the public esteem. 

In all the universities of Europe, excepting our own, the 
languages and sciences are distributed among a numerous list 
of effective professors : the students, according to their taste, 
their calling, and their diligence, apply themselves to the 
proper masters ; and in the annual repetition of public and 
private lectures, these masters are assiduously employed. ^ 
Our curiosity may inquire what number of professors has 
been instituted at Oxford ? (for I shall now confine myself 
to my own university ;) by whom are they appointed, and 
what may be the probable chances of merit or incapacity ; 
how many are stationed to the three faculties, and how many 
are left for the liberal arts ? what is the form, and what the 

1 [It was not till 1850 that a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the State of 
the Universities was appointed. Its report was issued in 1852, and the Act 
embodying their recommendations was passed in 1854 — one hundred and one 
years after Gibbon left Oxford. By that time the University as a whole, and 
most of the Colleges, as " a voluntary act," had made an extensive reforma- 
tion.] 

2[" The privileges of graduates are a sort of statutes of apprenticeship " 
{The Wealth of Nations, \\\., 170).] 

* [See Appendix 12.] 



54 EDWARD GIBBON [i752 

substance, of their lessons ? But all these questions are 
silenced by one short and singular answer, " That in the 
university of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors 
have for these many years given up altogether even the 
pretence of teaching ".^ Incredible as the fact may appear, I 
must rest my belief on the positive and impartial evidence of 
a master of moral and political wisdom, who had himself 
resided at Oxford. Dr. Adam Smith assigns as the cause of 
their indolence, that, instead of being paid by voluntary con- 
tributions, which would urge them to increase the number, 
and to deserve the gratitude of their pupils, the Oxford 
professors are secure in the enjoyment of a fixed stipend, 
without the necessity of labour, or the apprehension of con- 
troul.2 It has indeed been observed, nor is the observation 
absurd, that excepting in experimental sciences, which 
demand a costly apparatus and a dexterous hand, the many 
valuable treatises, that have been published on every subject 
of learning, may now supersede the ancient mode of oral 
instruction.^ Were this principle true in its utmost latitude, 
I should only infer that the offices and salaries, which are 
become useless, ought without delay to be abolished. But 

1 [ ( Wealth of Nations, iii. , i68.) Gibbon, in describing the schools of Athens, 
alludes to this passage : " A judicious philosopher prefers the free contributions 
of the students to a fixed stipend for the professor ' ' ( The Decline, iv. , 264). 
Adam Smith was at Balliol College without a break from 1740 to 1746, being 
supported by an exhibition from the University of Glasgow. That he was 
benefited by his residence he shows in his letter of acknowledgment, in 1787, 
on his being chosen Rector of that university. "No man," he wrote, "can 
owe greater obligations to a society than I do to the University of Glasgow. 
They educated me ; they sent me to Oxford " (Dugald Stewart's Life of Smith, 
ed. iBii, p. III).] 

'^\_l'Vealth of Natio7ts, iii., 167.] 

3 [Gibbon, no doubt, referred to Dr. Johnson, who, "talking of education, 
said : ' People have now-a-days got a strange opinion that everything should 
be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as 
reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can 
be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shown. You 
may teach chymistry by lectures. — You might teach making of shoes by 
lectures'" (Boswell's Johnson, ii., 7). 

Charles Darwin says of the two sessions he studied in Edinburgh University 
{1825-7) : " The instruction was altogether by lectures, and these were intoler- 
ably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry by Hope ; but to my mind 
there are no advantages and many disadvantages in lectures compared with 
reading" {Life of C. Darwin, ed. 1892, p. 11).] 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 55 

there still remains a material difference between a book and 
a professor ; the hour of the lecture enforces attendance ; 
attention is fixed by the presence, the voice, and the occa- 
sional questions of the teacher ; the most idle will carry 
something away ; and the more diligent will compare the 
instructions, which they have heard in the school, with the 
volumes, which they peruse in their chamber. The advice of 
a skilful professor will adapt a course of reading to every 
mind and every situation ; his authority will discover, ad- 
monish, and at last chastise the negligence of his disciples ; 
and his vigilant inquiries will ascertain the steps of their 
literary progress. Whatever science he professes he may 
illustrate in a series of discourses, composed in the leisure 
of his closet, pronounced on public occasions, and finally 
delivered to the press. I observe with pleasure, that in the 
university of Oxford Dr. Lowth, with equal eloquence and 
erudition, has executed this task in his incomparable Preelec- 
tions on the Poetry of the Hebrews. ^ 

The college of St. Mary Magdalen was founded in the 
fifteenth century by Wainfleet, bishop of Winchester ; and 
now consists of a president, forty fellows, and a number of 
inferior students. ^ It is esteemed one of the largest and most 



1 [" All Scotland (said Johnson) could not muster learning enough for 
Lowth's " Praelections" {Johnsonian Misc., ii., 48). 

Lowth was Professor of Poetry from 1741 to 1751. His Prmlectiones De 
Sacra Poesi Hebrceorum is advertised in The Gent. Mag. for March, I7S3- 
" It was the first sign of the awakening of Oxford from that torpor under 
which two generations had now lain, under the besotting influence of Jacobite 
and high-church politics. The Lectures, De Sacra Poesi Hebi-ceorum, seemed 
to combine the polish of a past generation, long gone, with the learning of a 
new period to come. The lore of Michaelis was here dressed out in Latin as 
classical as, and more vigorous than, that of Addison. . . . Lowth's audience, 
though no judges of Hebrew, were connoisseurs in Latin ; and these lectures, 
interspersed with frequent passages of tasteful Latin translation, were delivered 
to thronging crowds, such as professional lecture rooms had long ceased to 
hold. In the ten years of Lowth's tenure of the chair he could boast that 
the study of Hebrew, which had been almost extinct, ' nimium diu neglectam 
et psene obsoletam,' had been rekindled by his exertions " (Pattison's Essays, 
ed. 1889, ii., 135-6).] 

2 [There were, and still are, thirty students on the foundation, called Demies 
(the second syllable is accentuated). They were ' ' so called because their 
allowance or ' commons ' was originally half that of a Fellow ; the Latin term 
is setni-communarius" (The New Eng, Did.).] 



56 EDWAED GIBBON [i752 

wealthy of our academical corporations, which may be com- 
pared to the Benedictine abbeys of Catholic countries ; and I 
have loosely heard that the estates belonging to Magdalen 
College, which are leased by those indulgent landlords at 
small quit-rents and occasional fines,i might be raised, in the 
hands of private avarice, to an annual revenue of nearly thirty 
thousand pounds.^ Our colleges are supposed to be schools 
of science as well as of education ; nor is it unreasonable to 
' expect that a body of literary men, devoted to a life of celibacy, 
exempt from the care of their own subsistence, and amply 
provided with books, should devote their leisure to the pro- 
secution of study, and that some effects of their studies should 
be manifested to the world. The shelves of their library 
groan under the weight of the Benedictine folios, of the 
editions of the fathers, and the collections of the middle ages, 
which have issued from the single abbey of St. Germain de 
Prez at Paris. ^ A composition of genius must be the offspring 



1 ["Some landlords, instead of raising the rent, take a fine for the renewal of 
the lease. This practice is in most cases the expedient of a spendthrift, who, 
for a sum of ready money, sells a future revenue of much greater value. It is in 
most cases, therefore, hurtful to the landlord. It is frequently hurtful to the 
tenant, and it is always hurtful to the community " ( Wealth of Nations, iii. , 268).] 

2[" In the days of James the Second the riches of Magdalen were immense, 
and were exaggerated by report. The college was popularly said to be wealthier 
than the wealthiest abbeys of the Continent. When the leases fell in, — so ran 
the vulgar rumour, — the rents would be raised to the prodigious sum of forty 
thousand pounds a year" (Macaulay's Etiglaiid, ed. 1873, iii., 19).] 

3 [Gibbon, writing of the end of the tenth century, says : ' ' While the Mus- 
sulmans . . . preserved the light of science, Europe sunk still deeper into 
ignorance, barbarism and superstition. The Benedictine abbeys, though they 
nursed the last of these monsters, opposed some faint resistance against the two 
former. They transcribed ancient books," etc. {Misc. Works, iii., 8). In the 
last year of his life he acknowledged the merits of " the Monkish Historians, 
as they are contemptuously styled. Our candour," he adds, "and even our 
justice, should learn to estimate their value and to excuse their imperfections " 
(ib., p. 561). 

When Bentley was editing the New Testament he sent a Fellow of his college 
to Paris, in 1719, to collate manuscripts. " The Benedictines," writes Bentley's 
biographer, " besides communicating all their own manuscripts, and using their 
interest in procuring collations from their brethren of Angers, accommodated 
him with a room and fire in their monastery of St. Germain des Prfe for his 
work, and several of them gave him assistance in the labour of collation" 
(Monk's Bentley, ii. , 122). 

Jordan wrote of the Abbey in 1733 : ' ' Tout y respire la science et la poli- 
tesse " ( Voyage LiMraire fait e?i 1733, p. 78). For the kindness of the English 
Benedictines to Johnson see Boswell's Johnson, ii., 402.] 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 57 

of one mind ; but such works of industry as may be divided 
among many hands, and must be continued during many years, 
are the peculiar province of a laborious community. If I 
inquire into the manufactures of the monks ^ of Magdalen, 
if I extend the inquiry to the other colleges of Oxford and 
Cambridge, 2 a silent blush, or a scornful frown, will be the 
only reply. The fellows or monks of my time were decent 
easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder ; their 
days were filled by a series of uniform employments ; the 
chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common room, 
till they retired, weary and well satisfied, to a long slumber. 
From the toil of reading, or thinking, or writing, they had 
absolved their conscience ; and the first shoots of learning and 
ingenuity withered on the gi'ound, without yielding any fruits 
to the owners or the public.^ As a gentleman commoner, I 
was admitted to the society of the fellows, and fondly expected 

1 [The scornfulness of the epithet is only fully understood by reading Gibbon's 
account of the monks in The Decline. ' ' These unhappy exiles from social 
life," he writes, " were impelled by the dark and implacable genius of super- 
stition. . . . The freedom of the mind, the source of every generous and 
rational sentiment, was destroyed by the habits of credulity and submission, 
and the monk, contracting the vices of a slave, devoutly followed the faith 
and passions of his ecclesiastical tyrant. . . . Pleasure and guilt are 
synonymous terms in the language of the monks. . . . The monastic studies 
have tended for the most part to darken rather than to dispel the cloud 
of superstition. ... A cruel, unfeeling temper has distinguished the monks 
of every age and country. . . . The sacred indolence of the monks was 
devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age. . . . Europe was overrun 
by the Barbarians, and Asia by the monks " [The Decline, iv. , 62, 66, 67, 69, 
74, 163, 235). In an earlier passage he says that "no church has been 
dedicated, no altar has been erected, to the only monk who died a martyr in 
the cause of humanity" {ib., iii. , 258). Of Athanasius he says: "As he was 
writing to monks, there could not be any occasion for him to affect a rational 
language" {ib., ii., 340).] 

2 [Parr entered Emmanuel College in 1765. ' ' The unreserved conversation 
of scholars," he writes, " the disinterested offices of friendship, the use of valu- 
able books, and the example of good men, are endearments by which Cambridge 
will keep a strong hold upon my esteem, my respect, and my gratitude, to the 
latest moment of my life. Never shall I have the presumption ' to disclaim her 
as a mother,' and never may she have just occasion 'to renounce me as a son' " 
(Parr's Works, ii., 566. See also ib., p. 564, for the diligence of the students). 

Pitt, who entered Cambridge in 1773, besides studying mathematics, read 
with his tutor all the works of almost every Greek or Latin writer of any 
eminence (Stanhope's Pitt, i. , 15). Gray, who entered in 1734, "always dis- 
liked and ridiculed the system of education at Cambridge" (Mitford's Grafs 
Works, i.. Preface, p. 22. See also ib., i., 140, for his " Hymn to Ignorance").] 

■^ [See Appendix 13.] 



58 EDWARD GIBBON [i752 

that some questions of literature would be the amusing and 
instructive topics of their discourse. Their conversation stag- 
nated in a round of college business^ Tory politics, personal 
anecdotes, and private scandal : ^ their dull and deep potations 
excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their consti- 
tutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty 
for the house of Hanover.^ A general election was now 
approaching : the great Oxfordshire contest already blazed 
with all the malevolence of party zeal. Magdalen College 
was devoutly attached to the old interest ! and the names of 
Wenman and Dashwood were more frequently pronounced 
than those of Cicero and Chrysostom.^ The example of the 
senior fellows could not inspire the under-graduates with a 
liberal spirit or studious emulation ; and I cannot describe, as 
I never knew, the discipline of college. Some duties may 
possibly have been imposed on the poor scholars, whose ambi- 
tion aspired to the peaceful honours of a fellowship (ascribi 

^ [Dr. Bloxam records an anecdote, too gross to quote, of an act of public 
indecency committed by Richard Jaclcson, Doctor of Divinity, who became 
Fellow of Magdalen in 1744 {Register of the Preside?its, etc. , of Magdalen College, 
vi., 204). 

Three days after Gibbon entered Oxford the "unfortunate" Miss Blandy 
was hanged on the Castle Green for murdering her father. There were 5,000 
spectators, "many of whom, and particularly several genttemen of the Univer- 
sity, shed tears " {Gent. Mag., 1752, p. 188). There was no lack that day of a 
subject for talk in the Common Room.] 

2 [Lord Hervey {Memoirs, i., 205) records that in 1733, on the dropping of 
the Excise Bill, " for three nights together, round the bonfires made at Oxford, 
the healths of Ormond, Bolingbroke and James III., were publicly drank".] 

'*[" Oxford. May 31, 1754. — On Monday last the gentlemen of the new 
interest finished their objections to the voters for Lord Wenman and Sir James 
Dashwood ; after which the gentlemen of the old interest proceeded to examine 
evidence for requalifying the votes objected to, and continued their examination 
till Thursday at noon. But the writ being returnable next morning, the High 
Sheriff declared that as the time limited would not permit him to go through 
the whole scrutiny, he found himself obliged to return all the four candidates, 
and leave the determination to the House of Commons. By the care taken to 
preserve the peace, notwithstanding the great concourse of people, no remark- 
able disturbance happened till Thursday afternoon, when the gentlemen of the 
new interest set out in a grand cavalcade with streamers flying, etc. , down the 
High Street. Upon Magdalen Bridge, some dirt and stones being thrown by 
the populace of the other party, a pistol was rashly discharged, as it is said, 
out of a post-chaise, and a chimney-sweeper's boy had his skull fractured by 
the ball" {Gent. Mag., 1754, p. 289). 

See Colman's Connoisseur, No. xi. , dated April 11, 1754, for a dispute 
between two ' ' academical rakes " in a Covent Garden tavern over the old and 
new interest.] 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 59 

quietis ordinihus . . . Deorum) ; ^ but no independent members 
were admitted below the rank of a gentleman commoner, and 
our velvet cap was the cap of liberty. A tradition prevailed 
that some of our predecessors had spoken Latin declamations 
in the hall,^ but of this ancient custom no vestige remained : 
the obvious methods of public exercises and examinations were 
totally unknown ; ^ and I have never heard that either the 
president or the society interfered in the private economy of 
the tutors and their pupils. 

The silence of the Oxford professors, which deprives the 
youth of public instruction, is imperfectly supplied by the 
tutors, as they are styled, of the several colleges. Instead of 
confining themselves to a single science, which had satisfied 
the ambition of Burman,* or Bernoulli,*' they teach, or 

1 [" Ranked among the tranquil powers divine." 

(Francis' Horace, Odes, iii. , 3, 35.) 

"The more I see of the Foundation [of Queen's College] the more I 
felicitate myself that I did not enter upon it. I could not bear to be so brow- 
beaten" {Letters of Radcliffe and James, p. 56).] 

2 [See Appendix 14.] 

3 [James mentions in 1781, "a person of Merton College, who, being to 
take orders on Sunday last, was under absolute necessity of having his degree. 
Trifling and farcical as these things are known to be, I never saw a man under 
more apprehensions, or with greater reason, for he protested to us with vehemence 
that he had not looked in any Latin or Greek book since his matriculation ; and 
as for the sciences, he was hardly acquainted with their names. Yet he escaped, 
and was rewarded by a certificate signed by three Masters, setting forth — ay, 
here it is — that Cattel of Merton College, ' in singulis artibus seu scientiis, quas 
et quatenus per statuta audivisse tenetur, laudabiles progressus et pares ei gradui, 
quem ambit, fecisse ; ac speciatim in rebus quotidiani usus animi sui sensa 
lingua Latina explicandi ea facultate pollere quam statuta requirunt ' " {Letters 
of Radcliffe and James, p. 160).] 

* [Burman is an unfortunate instance. "In the University of Utrecht, 
Burman, in 1696, was chosen Professor of Eloquence and History, to which 
was added, after some time, the professorship of the Greek Language, and 
afterwards that of Politics. " Vacating these offices he accepted the professor- 
ships of History, Eloquence and the Greek Language at Leyden. He was 
twice Rector of the University. "When the professorship of History of the 
United Provinces became vacant, it was conferred on him, as an addition to 
his honours and revenues which he might justly claim ; and afterwards they 
made him Chief Librarian " (Johnson's Works, vi., 401-403).] 

•''["The Bernoullis and Euler made Basel famous as the cradle of great 
mathematicians. The family of Bernoullis furnished in the course of a century 
eight members who distinguished themselves in mathematics. The first was 
born in 1654 ; the last died in 1807 " (Cajori's Hist, of Math., 1894, p. 236). 

Voltaire writes in his Si&cle de Louis XIV., ch. 31 : " Les id{5es supersti- 
tieuses 6taient tellement enracin^es chez les hommes, que les cometes les 
effrayaient encore en i68p. On osait a peine combattre cette crainte populaire. 



60 EDWARD GIBBON [i752 

promise to teach, eithei* history or mathematics, or ancient 
literature, or moral philosophy ; and as it is possible that 
they may be defective in all, it is highly probable that of 
some they will be ignorant. They are paid, indeed, by 
volmitary contributions ; but their appointment depends on 
the head of the house : their diligence is voluntary, and will 
consequently be languid, while the pupils themselves, or their 
parents, are not indulged in the liberty of choice or change. 
The first tutor into whose hands I was resigned appears to 
have been one of the best of the tribe : Dr. Waldegrave was 
a learned and pious man, of a mild disposition, strict moi'als 
and abstemious life, who seldom mingled in the politics or 
the jollity of the college. But his knowledge of the world 
was confined to the university ; his learning was of the last, 
rather than the present age ; his temper was indolent ; his 
faculties, which were not of the first rate, had been relaxed 
by the climate, and he was satisfied, like his fellows, with the 
slight and superficial discharge of an important trust. As 
soon as my tutor had sounded the insufficiency of his pupil 
in school-learning, he proposed that we should read every 
morning from ten to eleven the comedies of Terence.^ The 
sum of my improvement in the university of Oxford is 
confined to three or four Latin plays ; and even the study 
of an elegant classic, which might have been illustrated by 
a comparison of ancient and modern theatres, was reduced 
to a dry and literal interpretation of the author's text. 
During the first weeks I constantly attended these lessons 
in my tutor's room ; but as they appeared equally devoid 
of profit and pleasure I was once tempted to try the experi- 
ment of a formal apology. The apology was accepted with 
a smile. I repeated the offence with less ceremony ; the 
excuse was admitted with the same indulgence : the slightest 

Jacques Bernouilli, I'un des grands mathematiciens de 1' Europe, en r^pondant 
a propos de cette comete aux partisans du pr(5jug6, dit que la chevelure de la 
comete ne peut etre un signe de la colore divine, parce que cette chevelure est 
^ternelle ; mais que la queue pourrait en etre un. "] 

1 [Hurdis in his Vindicaiio/t (p. 24) admits that "the attendance of young 
men upon their tutors continues for an hour only in every day ".] 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 61 

motive of laziness or indisposition, the most trifling avocation 
at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impediment ; 
nor did my tutor appear conscious of my absence or neglect.^ 
Had the hour of lecture been constantly filled, a single hour 
was a small portion of my academic leisure. No plan of 
study was recommended for my use ; no exercises were pre- 
scribed for his inspection ; and, at the most precious season 
of youth, whole days and weeks were suffered to elapse 
without labour or amusement, without advice or account. I 
should have listened to the voice of reason and of my tutor ; 
his mild behaviour had gained my confidence, I preferred 
his society to that of the younger students ^ ; and in our 
evening walks to the top of Heddington Hill,^ we freely 
conversed on a variety of subj ects. Since the days of Pocock 
and Hyde, Oriental learning has always been the pride of 

1 [Pattison, in his article on F. A. Wolf {Essays, i. , 342), excuses Gibbon's 
tutors. " Wolf's masters," he writes, " connived at his absence, judging, like 
Gibbon's Magdalen tutors, that his time would be better employed elsewhere." 

The late Rev. C. W. Boase, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and Univer- 
sity Reader in Foreign History, a man full of learning and full of kindliness, 
told me that Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris, both members of his 
College, had been his pupils. They were by no means regular in attending 
his lectures, but he let them go their own ways, as he saw that they knew how 
to teach themselves much better than he could have done it for them.] 

2 [" Mr. Finden, an ancient Fellow of the College, and a contemporary of 
Gibbon, told me (wrote Dr. Routh) that his superior abilities were known to 
many, but that the gentlemen-commoners were disposed to laugh at his peculi- 
arities ; and were once informed by Finden that if their heads were entirely 
scooped. Gibbon had brains sufficient to supply them all " ( Tke Decline, 
ed. Milman, 1854, i. , 32). 

Parr describes Gibbon as entering college ' ' with a weakly frame of body, 
with a coldness of temperament, which made him stand aloof from the gaiety 
of companions, and from the generous sympathy of friends" (Parr's Works, 
ii., 582). Gibbon speaks of his "awkward timidity" in his youth {post, 
p. 86).] 

•^ [Hearne recorded on Feb. 22, 1723-4: "Upon the top of Heddington 
Hill, on the left hand as we go to Heddington, just at the brow of the branch 
of the Roman way that falls down upon Marston Lane, is an elm, that is 
commonly known by the name of Jo. Pullen's tree, it having been planted by 
the care of the late Mr. Josiah PuUen of Magdalen Hall, who used to walk 
to that place every day, sometimes twice a day, if tolerable weather, from 
Magdalen Hall and back again in the space of half an hour " (Hearne's 
Remains, ii., 194). Dr. Bliss says in a note on ii. , 238 : " This tree, mutilated 
though it be, is still (1856) standing, and may in every sense be deemed univer- 
sity property. First, from the associations belonging to it, and the numerous 
visitants of early days, as well as of modern times, who have made it their 
almost daily boundary of exercise." Nothing is now left of it but the lower 
part of the dead trunk.] 



62 EDWAED GIBBON [i752 

Oxford, and I once expressed an inclination to study Arabic. ^ 
His prudence discouraged this childish fancy ; but he neglected 
the fair occasion of directing the ardour of a curious mind. 
During my absence in the summer vacation. Dr. Waldegrave 
accepted a college living at Washington in Sussex, and on 
my return I no longer found him at Oxford.'^ From that 
time I have lost sight of my first tutor ; but at the end of 
thirty years (1781) he was still alive ; and the practice of 
exercise and temperance had entitled him to a healthy old 
age. 

The long recess between the Trinity and Michaelmas terms 
empties the colleges of Oxford, as well as the courts of 
Westminster.^ I spent, at my father's house at Buriton in 



1 [Edward Pocock (ante, p. 33) was Professor of Arabic from 1636 to 1691, 
when he was succeeded by Thomas Hyde, who held the office till 1702. 
Hearne recorded on April 26, 1706, that " Dr. Hyde's books are mightily 
bought up in Holland, and other parts of Germany, where they have a great 
opinion of his learning, especially in Orientals (in which there is no doubt he 
was the greatest master in Europe), though he was disrespected in Oxford by 
several men, who now speak well of him " (Hearne's Remains, i., 104). 

Jones, who entered Oxford in 1764, began to study Arabic under the 
encouragement of a fellow student. He prevailed on a native of Aleppo to 
come to Oxford from London and give him lessons (Teignmouth's Life of Si)- 
IV. Jones, p. 40).] 

2 [Southey wrote of his old tutor : "I believe he led but a melancholy life 
after he left college ; without neighbours, without a family, without a pursuit, 
he must have felt dismally the want of his old routine, and sorely have missed 
his pupils, the chapel bells, and the Common Room. A monk is much happier 
than an old fellow of a college who retires to reside upon a country living" 
(Southey's Life and Corres., iv. , 343). 

Dr. Waldegrave, six years after he left Magdalen, wrote to Gibbon : " It 
will give me great pleasure to see you at Washington ; where I am, I thank 
God, very well and very happy " {Misc. Works, ii. , 37).] 

^ [Only a quarter of a century earlier there were many students in residence 
all the year round (Boswell's Johnson, i. , 63, n. i.). Johnson, who was absent 
from college but one week in the long vacation of 1729, wrote of Oxford on 
August I, 1775 : "The place is now a sullen solitude" (ib., i., 63; Johnson's 
Letters, i. , 361). 

' ' Adam Smith resided uninterruptedly in Oxford from July 7, 1740, to August 
IS, 1746, as the Buttery Books of Balliol College show " ( Wealth of Nations, 
ed. J. E. T. Rogers, 1869, vol. i. , Preface, p. 7). 

James wrote from Queen's College on July 30, 1779 : " My staircase is from 
the noisiest become one of the most peaceful of any in college. I am able to 
unravel the perplexities of a Greek paragraph without being disturbed by a 
heavy foot or a caper over my head. ' ' On Oct. 7 he wrote : ' ' The university 
is yet thin and desolate" {Letters of Radcliffe and James, pp. 80, 85). The 
change was greatly due to better roads and swifter and more frequent stage- 
coaches.! 



1752] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 63 

Hampshire, the two months of August and September. It is 
whimsical enough, that as soon as I left Magdalen College, 
my taste for books began to revive ; but it was the same 
blind and boyish taste for the pursuit of exotic history. ^ Un- 
provided with original learning, unformed in the hat)its of 
thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved — to 
write a book. The title of this first Essay, The Age ofSesostris, 
was perhaps suggested by Voltaire's Age of Lewis XIV. which 
was new and popular ; but my sole object was to investigate 
the probable date of the life and reign of the conqueror of 
Asia. I was then enamoured of Sir John Marsham's Canon 
Chronicus ; an elaborate work, of whose merits and defects 
I was not yet qualified to judge. ^ According to his specious, 
though narrow plan, I settled my hero about the time of 
Solomon, in the tenth century before the Christian era. It 
was therefore incumbent on me, unless I would adopt Sir 
Isaac Newton's shorter chronology,^ to remove a formidable 
objection ; and my solution, for a youth of fifteen, is not 
devoid of ingenuity. In his version of the Sacred Books, 
Manetho the high priest has identified Sethosis, or Sesostris, 

1 [D. P. (Daniel Prince) wrote to The Gent. Mag. on Feb. 4, 1794 (p. 119) : 
" I was Mr. Gibbon's bookseller at Oxford. He was a singular character, and 
but little connected with the young gentlemen of his College. They admit at 
Magdalen College only men of fortune ; no commoners. One uncommon book 
for a young man I remember selling to him : La Bibliothtque Orientale 
cC He7-helot., which he seems much to have used for authorities for his Eastern 
Roman History. " " The art and genius of history have ever been unknown to 
the Asiatics. . . . The Oriental Library of a Frenchman would instruct the 
most learned mufti of the East " {The Decline, v., 402). For D'Herbelot see 
ante, p. 45.] 

2 [It was published in 1672. For Gibbon's criticism of it see Misc. Works, 
V-.245-] 

"* [Gibbon, in his Remarques critiques on Newton's chronology, written in 
1758, says : " Son systeme de chronologic sufiflrait seul pour lui assurer I'im- 
mortalit^ " [Misc. Works, iii. , 152). In The Decline, v., 104, writing of Newton's 
detection of frauds in the text of the New Testament, he says : " I have weighed 
the arguments and may yield to the authority of the first of philosophers, who 
was deeply skilled in critical and theological studies ". 

Whiston, Newton's successor at Cambridge in the chair of mathematics, 
wrote of him in 1749 : " He was of the most fearful, cautious and suspici- 
ous temper that I ever knew ; and had he been alive when I wrote against his 
chronology, and so thoroughly confuted it that nobody has ever ventured to 
vindicate it, that I know of, I should not have thought proper to publish it 
during his lifetime ; because I knew his temper so well that I should have 
expected it would have killed him " (Whiston's Memoirs, ed. 1749, p. 294).] 



64 EDWARD GIBBON [i752 

with the elder brother of Danaus, who landed m Greece, 
according to the Parian Marble/ fifteen hundred and ten 
years before Christ. But in my supposition the high priest 
is guilty of a voluntary error ; flattery is the prolific parent 
of falsehood. Manetho's History of Egypt is dedicated to 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, who derived a fabulous or illegitimate 
pedigree froxn the Macedonian kings of the race of Hercules. 
Danaus is the ancestor of Hercules ; and after the failure of 
the elder branch, his descendants, the Ptolemies, are the sole 
representatives of the royal family, and may claim by inherit- 
ance the kingdom which they hold by conquest. Such were 
my juvenile discoveries ; at a riper age I no longer presume 
to connect the Greek, the Jewish and the Egyptian anti- 
quities, which are lost in a distant cloud. Nor is this the 
only instance, in which the belief and knowledge of the child 
are superseded by the more rational ignorance of the man. 
During my stay at Buriton, my infant labour was diligently 
prosecuted, without much interruption from company or 
country diversions ; and I already heard the music of public 
applause. The discovery of my own weakness was the first 
symptom of taste. On my return to Oxford, the Age of 
Sesostris was wisely relinquished ; but the imperfect sheets 
remained twenty years at the bottom of a drawer, till, in a 
general clearance of papers (November, 1772), they were 
committed to the flames. 

After the departure of Dr. Waldegrave, I was transferred, 
with his other pupils, to his academical heir, whose literary 
character did not command the respect of the college. Dr. 
. . . .^ well remembered that he had a salary to receive, and 

1 [Gibbon, reading Marsham in 1762, recorded : " I cannot help wondering 
at the blind deference which he pays to the oracular authority of the Parian 
Marble : De ea re (the age of Homer) 7ion est amplius ambigendum. I respect 
that monument as an useful, as an uncorrupt monument of antiquity ; but 
why should I prefer its authority to that of Herodotus, for instance? It is 
more modern, its authority is uncertam " {Misc. Works, v., 245).] 

2 [Thomas Winchester. Archdeacon Churton described him as "a con- 
siderable Tutor in the College, when, among others, the ingenious Mr. Lovibond 
was his pupil. . . . His talents, if not splendid, were sound and good ; his 
attainments various and useful ; and he was a true son to the Church of 
England" (Bloxam's Register, iii., pp. 220, 224). Dr. Bloxam adds : "The 



1752-53] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 65 

only forgot that he had a duty to perform.^ Instead of guid- 
ing the studies, and watching over the behaviour of his disciple, 
I was never summoned to attend even the ceremony of a 
lecture ; and, excepting one voluntary visit to his rooms, 
during the eight months of his titular office, the tutor and 
pupil lived in the same college as strangers to each other. 
The want of experience, of advice, and of occupation, soon 
betrayed me into some improprieties of conduct, ill-chosen 
company, late hours, and inconsiderate expense. My growing 
debts might be secret ; but my frequent absence was visible 
and scandalous ^ : and a tour to Bath, a visit into Buckingham- 
shire, and four excursions to London in the same winter, were 
costly and dangerous frolics. They were, indeed, without a 
meaning, as without an excuse. The irksomeness of a 
cloistered life repeatedly tempted me to wander ; but my 
chief pleasure was that of travelling; and I was too young 
and bashful to enjoy, like a manly Oxonian in town, the 
pleasures of London.^ In all these excursions I eloped from 

late venerable President [Routh] remembered him coming occasionally to the 
College Gaudy, and represented him to me as a man of a very florid com- 
plexion" (ib., p. 225).] 

1 [According to Bentham, one of the two tutors at Queen's College took 
pupils for six guineas, and the other took them for eight. "The cheaper was 
selected by Bentham's father. It mattered little — the difference was only 
between Bavius and Msevius " (Bentham's Works, x. , 38). Gibbon, as a 
gentleman-commoner, paid his tutor twenty guineas [Auto., p. 226). Archibald 
Macdonald (afterwards Chief Baron of the Exchequer) wrote from Christ 
Church in 1769 : " From the college tutor very little is to be expected. He 
does not interfere at all with the expense of his pupil, not a great deal with his 
Latin and Greek, far less with his progress in the sciences. The Gentleman- 
Commoner pays his tutor twenty guineas per annum. The Commoner eight " 
{Letters of Johnson, i., 419). John Wesley, who had been a tutor of Lincoln 
College twenty years before Gibbon entered Magdalen, said : "I should have 
thought myself little better than a highwayman if I had not lectured m}'- pupils 
every day in the year but Sundays " (Wesley's Journals, ed. 1827, iv. , 75).] 

^[Hurdis, with matchless impudence, thus defends Magdalen : " In a large 
college the absence of an individual, especially of Mr. Gibbon's dimensions, 
might not have been visible, as he incorrectly asserts it must have been. . . . 
It was Magdalen College which made him fly from the stately edifices of Oxford 
to an old inconvenient tenement in Lausanne. Whatever application, sobriety 
and literary desert were consequent, must be referred to this, salutary, though 
severe, proof of discipline still alive and still endued with energy in Magdalen 
College" (Hurdis's Vindication, pp. 5, 9).] 

■^[The prologue to Colraan's The Oxonian in Town (1769) was spoken by 
"Mr. Woodward, in the character of a Gentleman-Commoner ". . . . The scene 
opens at the door of a tavern in Covent Garden where two Oxonians have just 

5 



66 EDWAED GIBBON [1752-53 

Oxford ; I returned to college ; in a few days I eloped again, 
as if I had been an independent stranger in a hired lodging, 
without once hearing the voice of admonition, without once 
feeling the hand of controul. Yet my time was lost, my ex- 
penses were multiplied, my behaviour abroad was unknown ; 
folly as well as vice should have awakened the attention of 
my superiors, and my tender years would have justified a more 
than ordinary degree of restraint and discipline.^ 

It might at least be expected, that an ecclesiastical school 
should inculcate the orthodox principles of religion. But our 
venerable mother had contrived to unite the opposite extremes 
of bigotry and indiiFerence ^ ; an heretic, or unbeliever, was a 
monster in her eyes ; but she was always, or often, or some- 
times remiss in the spiritual education of her own children.^ 
According to the statutes of the university, every student, 
before he is matriculated, must subscribe his assent to the 
thirty-nine articles of the church of England, which are 
signed by more than read, and read by more than believe 
them. My insufficient age excused me, however, from the 
immediate performance of this legal ceremony, and the Vice- 
Chancellor directed me to return, as soon as I should have 
accomplished my fifteenth year ; recommending me, in the 
meanwhile, to the instruction of my college. My college 



arrived. One says to the other : ' ' Let's in. Perhaps we shall meet with some 
Oxford acquaintance, for I know that Bob Lounge and Dick Scamper drew for 
their quarterage but two days ago ; and they always spend the first week after 
they receive it in Covent Garden."] 

1 [See Appendix 15.] 

2 [The general indifference of the Church at this time is shown by a letter 
Whiston received in 1730 from "a worthy friend " of his living in Durham, who 
wrote to him : " For near two years last past there hath not been one Bishop 
appeared amongst us in all the North part of England " (Whiston's Memoirs, 
P- 337)-] 

3 [James wrote, on May 19, 1781 : " The new regulations introduced by the 
Vice-Chancellor extend only to petty irregularities, whilst the weightier matters 
of the law are disregarded. It is in these in particular that our superiors are 
very exact and profuse of rebuke. Thus very lately a man was imposed [given 
an imposition] for having missed chapel, while others were suffered to get drunk 
without any but a trifling verbal reprimand " {Letters of Radcliffe and Ja7nes, 
p. 141). See also Boswell's Johnson, iii. , 13, n. 3. "To a philosophic eye 
the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous than their virtues ' ' ( T/ie Decline, 
v., 299).] 



1752-53] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 67 

forgot to instruct : I forgot to return, and was myself forgotten 
by the first magistrate of the university.^ Without a single 
lecture, either public or private, either Christian or Protestant, 
without any academical subscription, without any episcopal 
confirmation, I was left by the dim light of my catechism to 
grope my way to the chapel and communion-table, where I 
was admitted, without a question, how far, or by what means, 
I might be qualified to receive the sacrament. Such almost 
incredible neglect was productive of the worst mischiefs. 
From my childhood I had been fond of religious disputation : 
my poor aunt has been often puzzled by the mysteries which 
she strove to believe ; nor had the elastic spring been totally 
broken by the weight of the atmosphere of Oxford. The 
blind activity of idleness urged me to advance without armour 
into the dangerous mazes of controversy ; and at the age of six- 
teen, I bewildered myself in the errors of the Church of Rome. 
The progress of my conversion may tend to illustrate, at 
least, the history of my own mind. It was not long since Dr. 
Middleton's Free Enquiry had sounded an alarm in the theo- 
logical world : much ink and much gall had been spilt in the 
defence of the primitive miracles '^ ; and the two dullest of 
their champions were crowned with academic honours by the 
university of Oxford.^ The name of Middleton was unpopular ; 

1 [See Appendix i6.] 

2 [Dr. Conyers Middleton's Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers -which 
are supposed to have subsisted in the Ch7'istian Church from the Earliest Ages 
through Several Sticcessive Centuries was published in 1749. He had preceded it 
in 1747 by an Introductory Discourse. 

Gibbon, reading the book in 1764, recorded of the author : " This man was 
endowed with penetration and accuracy. He saw where his principles led ; but 
he did not think proper to draw the consequences " {Misc. Wo>-ks, v. , 463). 

" The miracles of the primitive Church, after obtaining the sanction of ages, 
have been lately attacked in a very free and ingenious inquiry ; which, though it 
has met with the most favourable reception from the Public, appears to have 
excited a general scandal among the divines of our own as well as of the other 
Protestant Churches of Europe " ( The Decline, ii. , 29). 

In The Gent. Mag., 1749, pp. 96, 161, 240, 288, 480, 528, there is mention of 
seven works on this controversy ; and in 1750, pp. 48, 96, 144, 192, 240, 528, 576, 
of twenty.] 

3[Dr. Dodwell and Dr. Church. "On this, indeed," writes Middleton, 
"they have great reason to plume themselves, but would have had much 
greater, if that learned body could stamp the truth of opinions by the same seal 
with which it stamps diplomas " (Middleton, Misc. Works, ed. 1752 ^ i., 290).] 



68 EDWARD GIBBON [i758 

and his proscription very naturally led me to peruse his 
writings, and those of his antagonists. His bold criticism, 
which approaches the precipice of infidelity,^ produced on my 
mind a singular effect ; and had I persevered in the com- 
munion of Rome, I should not apply to my own fortune 
the prediction of the Sibyl, 

Via prima salutis, 



Quod minime reris, Graia pandetur ab urbe.^ 

The elegance of style and freedom of argument were repelled 
by a shield of prejudice. I still revered the character, or 
rather the names, of the saints and fathers whom Dr. 
Middleton exposes ; nor could he destroy my implicit belief 
that the gift of miraculous powers was continued in the 
church, during the first four or five centuries of Christianity.^ 
But I was unable to resist the weight of historical evidence, 
that within the same period most of the leading doctrines of 
popery were already introduced in theory and practice : nor 
was ray conclusion absurd, that miracles are the test of truth, 
and that the church must be orthodox and pure, which was so 
often approved by the visible interposition of the Deity. The 



1 [Gibbon wrote in 1779: "A theological barometer might be formed of 
which Cardinal Baronius and our countryman Dr. Middleton should constitute 
the opposite and remote extremities, as the former sunk to the lowest degree of 
credulity which was compatible with learning, and the latter rose to the highest 
pitch of scepticism in anywise consistent with religion. The intermediate 
gradations would be filled by a line of ecclesiastical critics, whose rank has been 
fixed by the circumstances of their temper and studies, as well as by the spirit 
of the church or society to which they were attached. It would be amusing 
enough to calculate the weight of prejudice in the air of Rome, of Oxford, of 
Paris, and of Holland ; and sometimes to observe the irregular tendency of 
Papists towards freedom, sometimes to remark the tmnatural gravitation of 
Protestants towards slavery" [Misc. Works, iv. , 588).] 

^[yEneid, vi., 96. 

" The dawnings of thy safety shall be shown 

From whence thou least shalt hope, a Grecian town." 

(Dryden.)] 

3[" The conversion of Constantine is the era which is most usually fixed by 
Protestants [of the withdrawal of miraculous powers from the Church]. The 
more rational divines are unwilling to admit the miracles of the fourth, whilst 
the more credulous are unwilling to reject those of the fifth century" {T/ie 
Decline, ii., 30). Whiston, the Unitarian, published in 1749 A?i Accouni of the 
Exact Time when Miraculous Gifts Ceased in the Church. He placed it (p. 9) 
"just at, or after, the Council of Constantinople [a.d. 381] ".] 



1753] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 69 

marvellous tales which are so boldly attested by the Basils 
and Chrysostoms, the Austins and Jeroms^ compelled me to 
embrace the superior merits of celibacy, the institution of the 
monastic life^^ the use of the sign of the cross, of holy oil, and 
even of images, ^ the invocation of saints,^ the worship of relics, 
the rudiments of purgatory in prayers for the dead,"^ and the 
tremendous mystery of the sacrifice of the body and blood of 
Christ, which insensibly swelled into the prodigy of transub- 
stantiation. In these dispositions, and already more than 
half a convert, I formed an unlucky intimacy with a young 
gentleman of our college, whose name I shall spare. With 

a character less resolute, Mr. ^ had imbibed the same 

religious opinions ; and some Popish books, I know not 
through what channel, were conveyed into his possession. 
I read, I applauded, 1 believed ; ^ the English translations 
of two famous works of Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, the 
Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine,'' and the History of 

^[Ante, p. 57, n. i.] 

2 [Writing of the introduction of images into the Church he says : ' ' The 
fond alliance of the monks and females obtained a final victory over the reason 
and authority of man " ( TAe Decline, v., 276).] 

'^ [" The title of saint is a mark that his opinions and his party have finally 
prevailed" {ib., v., 107). "Bernard seems to have preserved as much 
reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character of a saint ' ' 
{ib., vi., 333).] 

* [Some ten or twelve years after he left Oxford Gibbon thus wrote of the 
Church of the fifteenth century : "If we turn from letters to religion the 
Christian must grieve, and the philosopher will smile. By a propensity natural 
to man the multitude had easily relapsed into the grossest polytheism. The 
existence of a Supreme Being was indeed acknowledged ; his mysterious attri- 
butes were minutely, and es'en indecently, canvassed in the schools ; but he 
was allowed a very small share in the public worship, or the administration of 
the universe. The devotion of the people was directed to the Saints and the 
Virgin iVIary, the delegates and almost the partners, of his authority. . . . 
New legends and new practices of superstition were daily invented by the 
interested diligence of the mendicant friars ; and as this religion had scarcely 
any connection with morality, every sin was expiated by penance, and every 
penance indulgently commuted into a fine " [Misc. Works, iii., 54).] 

'' [Gibbon does not give the name. In the second edition Lord Sheffield 
filled up the blank with "Mr. Molesworth". The name is not given in 
Alumni Oxon. ; neither, the President tells me, is it in the College books.] 

^[It was in March, 1753, that his conversion began {Auto., p. 296).] 

'^ [Exposition de la Doctrine de I'Eglise Catholique sur les Matiires de 
Controverse. Paris, 1671. An English translation was printed at Paris the 
following year. Hearne {Remains, i., 58) says that the Exposition was 
"translated into English by Mr. Dryden, then only a poet, afterwards a 



70 EDWARD GIBBON [i753 

the Protestant Variations, ^ achieved my conversion, and I 
surely fell by a noble hand.^ I have since examined the 
originals with a more discerning eye, and shall not hesitate 
to pronounce that Bossuet is indeed a master of all the 
weapons of controversy. In the Exposition, a specious 
apology, the orator assumes, with consummate art, the tone 
of candour and simplicity ; and the ten-horned monster is 
transformed, at his magic touch, into the milk-white hind, 
who must be loved as soon as she is seen.^ In the History, 
a bold and well-aimed attack, he displays, with a happy 
m.ixture of narrative and argument, the faults and follies, 
the changes and contradictions of our first reformers ; whose 
variations (as he dexterously contends) are the mark of 
historical error, while the perpetual unity of the catholic 
church is the sign and test of infallible truth.* To my 
present feelings it seems incredible that I should ever believe 

papist, and may be so before, though not known". Though James II. made 
a miserable waste of Dr5'den's time by withdrawing him from poetry to the 
translation of controversial books, Bossuet's Exposition was not done by him. 
" Perhaps," to quote Johnson's words when he is speaking of the attribution 
to Dryden of another translation, ' ' Perhaps the use of his name was a pious 
fraud" (Johnson's Works, vii., 279).] 

'^\Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes. 2 Vols., quarto. Paris, 
1688. An English translation of the sixth edition was printed at Antwerp in 
1742. It was reprinted in Dublin in 1829. 

" La gloire de Bossuet est devenue I'une des religions de la France " 
(Sainte-Beuve, Causeries, x., 180).] 

2 Mr. Gibbon never talked with me on the subject of his conversion to 
popery but once : and then he imputed his change to the works of Parsons 
the Jesuit, who lived in the reign of Elizabeth, and who, he said, had urged all 
the best arguments in favour of the Roman Catholic religion. — Sheffield. 

[In Lowndes's Bibl. Man. , p. 1790, six columns are given to the works of 
Robert Parsons.] 

3 ["A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged, 
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged ; 



'Tis true she bounded -by, and tripped so light, 
They had not time to take a steady sight ; 
For truth has such a face and such a mien, 
As to be loved needs only to be seen." 

(Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, part i., 11. i, 31.)] 
*[" One in herself, not rent by schism, but sound. 
Entire, one solid shining diamond ; 
Not sparkles shattered into sects like you : 
One is the Church, and must be to be true." 

[lb., part ii., 1. 526.)] 



1753] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 71 

that I believed in transubstantiation.^ But my conqueror 
oppressed me with the sacramental words, " Hoc est corpus 
meum," and dashed against each other the figurative half- 
meanings of the protestant sects ; ^ every objection was 
resolved into omnipotence ; and after repeating at St. Mary's 
the Athanasian creed,^ I humbly acquiesced in the mystery 
of the real presence. 

To take up half on trust, and half to try, 

Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry ; 

Both knave and fool, the merchant we may call, -v 

To pay great sums, and to compound the small, J- 

For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all ? * J 

No sooner had I settled my new religion than 1 resolved to 
profess myself a catholic. Youth is sincere and impetuous; 
and a momentary glow of enthusiasm had raised me above all 
temporal considerations.^ 

By the keen protestants, who would gladly retaliate the 
example of persecution, a clamour is raised of the increase of 
popery : and they are always loud to declaim against the 

^[Gibbon, writing of Pope Innocent III., says : " It was at the feet of his 
legate that John of England surrendered his crown ; and Innocent may boast 
of the two most signal triumphs over sense and humanity, the establishment of 
transubstantiation, and the origin of the Inquisition" [T/ie Decline, vi., 355). 
In The Outlines of the History of the World, written many years earlier, 
Gibbon had thus expressed the same thought : " By establishing the doctrine 
of transubstantiation and the tribunal of the Inquisition, Innocent III. obtained 
the two most memorable victories over the common sense and common rights 
of mankind " {Misc. IVorks, iii., 21). In the same Essay he speaks of Lewis 
IX. as being " disgraced by the title of Saint " (ii., p. 25). For Gibbon's 
spelling of transuista filiation see Auto., pp. 86, 128, 137.] 

2 [I do not find that Bossuet in his Exposition (pp. 79-152) anywhere quotes 
the Latin. He frequently repeats " Ceci est mon corps ". His adversaries he 
always describes as "Messieurs de la Religion Pr^tendue R6form6e ". He 
examines the same question in the History, bks. ii. , vi., xiv.] 

•'[" The three following truths, however surprising they may seem, are now 
universally acknowledged : i. St. Athanasius is not the author of the creed 
which is so frequently read in our churches. 2. It does not appear to have 
existed within a century after his death. 3. It was originally composed in 
the Latin tongue, and consequently in the Western Provinces. Gennadius, 
Patriarch of Constantinople, was so much amazed by this extraordinary com- 
position that he frankly pronounced it to be the work of a drunken man " {The 
Decline, iv. , 89). ] 

'^\The Hind and the Panther, i., 141.] 

5 He described the letter to his father, announcing his conversion, as written 
with all the pomp, the dignity, and self-satisfaction of a martyr. — Sheffield. 



72 EDWARD GIBBON [i753 

toleration of priests and Jesuits^ who pervert so many of his 
majesty's subjects from their religion and allegiance.^ On 
the present occasion, the fall of one or more of her sons 
directed this clamour against the university : and it was con- 
fidently affirmed that popish missionaries were suffered, under 
various disguises, to introduce themselves into the colleges 
of Oxford. But justice obliges me to declare, that^ as far as 
relates to myself, this assertion is false ; and that I never 
conversed with a priest, or even with a papist, till my resolu- 
tion from books was absolutely fixed. ^ In my last excursion 
to London, I addressed myself to Mr. Lewis,^ a Roman 
catholic bookseller in Russell Street/ Covent Garden, who 
recommended me to a priest, of whose name and order I am 
at present ignorant.^ In our first interview he soon discovered 
that persuasion was needless. After sounding the motives 
and merits of my conversion, he consented to admit me into 
the pale of the church ; and at his feet, on the eighth of June, 
1753, I solemnly, though privately, abjured the errors of 



1 [" Under the reign of Lewis XIV. his subjects of every rank aspired to the 
glorious title of Coitvertisseur, expressive of their zeal and success in making 
proselytes. The word and the idea are growing obsolete in France ; may they 
never be introduced into England ! " [The Declitie, ii., 451.)]' 

2[" Cette conversion solitaire et toute par les livres caract^rise bien Gibbon " 
(Causeries du Lundi, viii., 437).] 

3[" He died in 1802. He used to relate that his father was a schoolfellow 
with Pope" (Nichols's Lit. Artec, iii. , 646).] 

4 [It was at the shop of a bookseller in the same street (No. 8) that, on May 
16, 1763, Boswell first saw Johnson (Boswell's Johnson, i. 390). 

Mary Lamb wrote to Miss Wordsworth on Nov. 21, 1817 : " Here we are, 
living at a brazier's shop, No. 20, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, a place 
all alive with noise and bustle ; Drury Lane Theatre in sight from our front 
and Covent Garden from our back windows". Charles Lamb wrote on the 
same day : ' ' We are in the individual spot I like best in all this great city. 
The theatres, with all their noises. Covent Garden, dearer to me than any 
gardens of Alcinous, where we are morally sure of the earliest peas and 
'sparagus. Bow Street, where the thieves are examined, within a few yards of 
us. Mary had not been here four and twenty hours before she saw a thief. 
She sits at the window working ; and casually throwing out her eyes, she sees 
a concourse of people coming this way with a constable to conduct the solemnity. 
These little incidents agreeably diversify a female life" (Lamb's Letters, ed. 
1888, ii., 6, 8).] 

5 His name was Baker, a Jesuit, and one of the chaplains of the Sardinian 
ambassador. Mr. Gibbon's conversion made some noise, and Mr. Lewis 
was summoned before the Privy Council and interrogated on the subject. This 
was communicated by Mr. Lewis's son, 1814. — Sheffield. 



175S] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 73 

heresy. The seduction of an English youth of family and 
fortune was an act of as much danger as glory ; but he bravely 
overlooked the danger^ of which I was not then sufficiently 
informed. " Where a person is reconciled to the see of Rome, 
or procures others to be reconciled, the oifence (says Blackstone) 
amounts to high treason." ^ And if the humanity of the age 
would prevent the execution of this sanguinary statute, there 
were other laws of a less odious cast, which condemned the 
priest to perpetual imprisonment, and transferred the pro- 
selyte's estate to his nearest relation. ^ An elaborate contro- 
versial epistle, approved by my director, and addressed to my 
father, announced and justified the step which I had taken. 
My father was neither a bigot nor a philosopher ; but his 
affection deplored the loss of an only son ; and his good sense 
was astonished at my strange departure from the religion of 
my country. In the first sally of passion he divulged a secret 
which prudence might have suppressed, and the gates of 
Magdalen College were for ever shut against my return.^ 
Many years afterwards, when the name of Gibbon was become 
as notorious as that of Middleton, it was industriously 
whispered at Oxford, that the historian had formerly " turned 
Papist " ; 't my character stood exposed to the reproach of 
inconstancy ; and this invidious topic would have been handled 

1 [" Where these errors are also aggravated by apostacy or perversion, where 
a person," etc. (Blackstone's Comm., ed. 1775, iv. , 56).] 

2 [See Appendix 17.] 

^[" As to the secret," asks Parr, " if it had been kept, did Mr. Gibbon, the 
convert, mingle so little sincerity with his zeal as to be capable of returning to 
Magdalen, even if he had not been forbidden to return ? " (Parr's Works, ii., 572.) 

Gibbon wrote to his aunt on Sept. 20, 1755 : ' ' My scheme would be to 
spend this winter at Lausanne . . . and after that, finish my studies either at 
Cambridge (for after what has passed one cannot think of Oxford) or at an 
university in Holland" [Alisc. Works, i., 98).] 

* [Gibbon no doubt refers to the following passage in Boswell's Johnson, ii., 
447 : " We talked of a work much in vogue at that time . . . which, under 
pretext of another subject, contained much artful infidelity. . . . The author 
had been an Oxonian, and was remembered there for having ' turned Papist '. 
I observed, that as he had changed several times — from the Church of England 
to the Church of Rome, — from the Church of Rome to infidelity, — I did not 
despair yet of seeing him a methodist preacher. Johnson (laughing). ' It is 
said, that his range has been more extensive, and that he has once been 
Mahometan.' " For Macaulay's explanation of the rumour that Gibbon had 
been a Mahometan see his Essays, ed. 1874, i. , 373, n.~\ 



74 EDWARD GIBBON [i753 

without mercy by my opponents, could they have separated 
my cause from that of the university. For my own part, I 
am proud of an honest sacrifice of interest to conscience. I 
can never blush, if my tender mind was entangled in the 
sophistry that seduced the acute and manly understandings 
of Chillingworth and Bayle, who afterwards emerged from 
superstition to scepticism. 

While Charles the First governed England^ and was himself 
governed by a Catholic queen, it cannot be denied that the 
missionaries of Rome laboured with impunity and success in 
the Court, the country, and even the universities. One of 
the sheep, 

Whom the grim wolf with privy paw 

Daily devours apace, and nothing said,^ 

is Mr. William Chillingworth, Master of Arts, and Fellow of 
Trinity College, Oxford ; who, at the ripe age of twenty- 
eight years, was persuaded to elope from Oxford, to the 
English seminary at Douay in Flanders. Some disputes with 
Fisher, a subtle Jesuit, might first awaken him from, the 
prejudices of education ; but he yielded to his own victorious 
argument, " that there must be somewhere an infallible judge ; 
and that the Church of Rome is the only Christian society 
which either does or can pretend to that character ".^ After 

i["What the grim wolf," etc. {Lycidas, 1. 128). In The Hind and the 
Panther X\\.% "insatiate wolf" is the Presbyterian Church.] 

2 [" The study and conversation of the university scholars at that time turned 
chiel^y upon the controversies between the Church of England and that of 
Rome ; and the great liberty which had been allowed the Popish missionaries 
in the end of the reign of King James I. being continued under King Charles I., 
upon the account of his marriage with Henrietta, daughter to Henry IV. of 
France. There was among them a famous Jesuit, who went under the name 
of John Fisher, though his true name was John Perse, or Percey, and was very 
busy in making converts, particularly at Oxford ; and attacking Mr. Chilling- 
worth upon the necessity of an infallible living judge in matters of faith, the 
latter forsook the communion of the Church of England." ChiUingworth on 
his conversion wrote to Sheldon, asking him : " i. Whether it be not evident 
from Scripture, and Fathers, and reason ; from the goodness of God and the 
necessity of mankind, that there must be some one Church infallible in matters of 
faith ? 2. Whether there be any society of men in the world, besides the Church 
of Rome, that either can, upon good warrant, or indeed at all, challenge to 
itself the privilege of infallibility in matter of faith? " (Birch's Life of Chilling- 
worth prefixed to Chillingworth's Works, ed. 1820, i. , 2. See also ib., iii., 
428, for An Account of what moved the Author to turn Papist.) 



1753] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 75 

a short trial of a few months, Mr. Chillingworth was again 
tormented by religious scruples : he returned home, resumed 
his studies, unravelled his mistakes, and delivered his mind 
from the yoke of authority and superstition. His new creed 
was built on the principle, that the Bible is our sole judge, 
and private reason our sole interpreter : and he ably main- 
tains this principle in the Religion of a Protestant, a book 
which, after startling the doctors of Oxford, is still esteemed 
the most solid defence of the Reformation.^ The learning, 
the virtue, the recent merits of the author, entitled him to 
fair prefernxent : but the slave had now broken his fetters ; 
and the more he weighed, the less was he disposed to sub- 
scribe to the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England. 
In a private letter he declares, with all the energy of 
language, that he could not subscribe to them without sub- 
scribing to his own damnation ; and that if ever he should 
depart from this immoveable resolution, he would allow his 
friends to think him a madman, or an atheist.^ As the letter 



Dryden spreads this argument over the second part of The Hind and the 
Panther. 

Johnson, writing of Dryden's conversion to Popery, says: "Chillingworth 
himself was awhile so entangled in the wilds of controversy as to retire for quiet 
to an infallible Church" (Johnson's Works, vii., 278). 

' ' I would be a Papist if I could, ' ' said Johnson. ' ' I have fear enough ; but 
an obstinate rationality prevents me" (Boswell's Johnson, iv. , 289).] 

1 [Gibbon's first tutor at Magdalen wrote to him on Dec. 7, 1758, after his 
reconversion : " Had I in the least suspected your design of leaving us, I should 
immediately have put you upon reading Mr. ChiUingworth's Religion of 
ProtestMits ; any one page of which is worth a library of Swiss divinity " [Misc. 

Works, ii., 37). 

Clarendon, describing " the felicity of the times before the Long Parliament," 
mentions: "The Protestant religion more advanced against the Church of 
Rome by writing, especially by those two books of the late Lord Archbishop of 
Canterbury his Grace, and of Mr. ChiUingworth, than it had been from the 
Reformation" [History of the Rebellion, ed. 1826, i., 134).] 

2 [In this letter, addressed to Sheldon, he wrote : "The case stands so with 
me, and I can see no remedy but for ever it will do so, that if I subscribe, I 
subscribe my own damnation. ... I will never undervalue the happiness 
which God's love brings to me with it, as to put it to the least adventure in the 
world, for the gaining of any worldly happiness. I remember very well quczrite 
prinium regnum Dei, et ccBtera omnia adjicientii.r tibi ; and therefore, whenever 
I make such a preposterous choice, I will give you leave to think I am out of 
my wits, or do not believe in God, or at least am so unreasonable as to do a 
thing, in hope I shall be sorry for it afterwards, and wish it undone " (ChiUing- 
worth's Works, 1., 15, 17).] 



76 EDWAED GIBBON [i753 

is without a date, we cannot ascertain the number of weeks 
or months that elapsed between this passionate abhorrence 
and the Salisbury Register, which is still extant. " Ego Guliel- 
mus Chillingworth, , . . omnibus hisce articulis, . . . et 
singulis in iisdem contentis volens, et ex animo subscribo, et 
consensum meum iisdem praebeo. 20 die Julii 1638." ^ But, 
alas ! the chancellor and prebendary of Sarum soon deviated 
from his own subscription : as he more deeply scrutinized the 
article of the Trinity, neither scripture nor the primitive 
fathers could long uphold his orthodox belief ; and he could 
not but confess, " that the doctrine of Arius is either a truth, 
or at least no damnable heresy ".^ From this middle region 
of the air, the descent of his reason would naturally rest on 
the firmer ground of the Socinians : and if we may credit a 
doubtful story, and the popular opinion, his anxious inquiries 
at last subsided in philosophic indifference. So conspicuous, 
however, were the candour of his nature and the innocence 
of his heart, that this apparent levity did not affect the 
reputation of Chillingworth. His frequent changes pro- 
ceeded from too nice an inquisition into truth. His doubts 
grew out of himself; he assisted them with all the strength 
of his reason : he was then too hard for himself ; but finding 
as little quiet and repose in those victories, he quickly 
recovered, by a new appeal to his own judgment: so that 
in all his sallies and retreats, he was in fact his own con- 
vert. 

Bayle was the son of a Calvinist minister in a remote 
province of France, at the foot of the Pyrenees. For the 
benefit of education, the Protestants were tempted to risk 
their children in the Catholic universities ; and in the twenty- 
second year of his age, young Bayle was seduced by the arts 
and arguments of the Jesuits of Toulouse. He remained 
about seventeen months (19th March, 1669 — 19th August, 
1 670) in their hands, a voluntary captive : and a letter to his 
parents, which the new convert composed or subscribed 

1 [Chillingworth's Works, Preface, p. xii.] "^[/b., i., 12.] 



1753] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 77 

(15th April, l6"70), is darkly tinged with the spirit of popery. 
But Nature had designed him to think as he pleased, and to 
speak as he thought : his piety was offended by the excessive 
worship of creatures,^ and the study of physics convinced him 
of the impossibility of trans ubstantiation, which is abundantly 
refuted by the testimony of our senses. His return to the 
communion of a falling sect was a bold and disinterested step, 
that exposed him to the rigour of the laws : and a speedy 
flight to Geneva protected him from the resentment of his 
spiritual tyrants, unconscious as they were of the full value 
of the prize which they had lost. Had Bayle adhered to the 
Catholic Church, had he embraced the ecclesiastical pro- 
fession, the genius and favour '^ of such a proselyte might have 
aspired to wealth and honours in his native country : but the 
hyprocite would have found less happiness in the comforts of 
a benefice, or the dignity of a mitre, than he enjoyed at 
Rotterdam in a private state of exile, indigence, and freedom. 
Without a country, or a patron, or a prejudice, he claimed the 
liberty and subsisted by the labours of his pen : the inequality 
of his voluminous works is explained and excused by his alter- 
nately writing for himself, for the booksellers, and for posterity ; 
and if a severe critic would reduce him to a single folio,^ that 
relic, like the books of the Sibyl, would become still more 



^[" Among the Barbarians of the West the worship of images advanced 
with a silent and insensible progress ; but a large atonement is made for their 
hesitation and delay by the gross idolatry of the ages which precede the 
Reformation, and of the countries, both in Europe and America, which are 
still immersed in the gloom of superstition " ( The Declme, v. , 279).] 

2 \Qucere fervour. ] 

'[Voltaire, dans Le Teviple du Gout, describing " la bibliotheque de ce 
palais enchant^," continues : "Tout I'esprit de Bayle se trouve dans un seul 
tome, de son propre aveu ; car ce judicieux philosophe, ce juge ^clair^ de 
tant d'auteurs et de tant de sectes, disait souvent qu'il n'aurait pas compose 
plus d'un in-folio s'il n'avait ^crit que pour lui, et non pour les libraires " 
(CEuvres de Voltaire, x., 160). 

In a letter dated " 21 Juin, 1739," Voltaire wrote : " Quel a done ete mon 
but, en r^duisant en un seul tome le bel esprit de Bayle ? De faire sentir ce 
qu'il pensait lui-mSme, ce qu'il dit et ^crit a M. Desmaizeaux, ce que j'ai vu de 
sa main : qu'il aurait 6crit moins s'il eut €i€ le maitre de son temps " [ib., xlvii., 
403). In another passage Voltaire described Bayle as " cet esprit, si ^tendu, 
si sage et si penetrant, dont les livres, tout diffus qu'ils peuvent ^tre, seront k 
jamais la bibliotheque des nations " {ib., xliii., 208).] 



78 EDWARD GIBBON [i753 

valuable. A calm and lofty spectator of the religious tempest, 
the philosopher of Rotterdam condemned with equal firmness 
the persecution of Lewis the Fourteenth, and the republican 
maxims of the Calvinists ; their vain prophecies, and the in- 
tolerant bigotry which sometimes vexed his solitary retreat. 
In reviewing the controversies of the times, he turned against 
each other the arguments of the disputants ^ ; successively 
wielding the arms of the Catholics and Protestants, he proves 
that neither the way of authority, nor the way of examina- 
tion can afford the multitude any test of religious truth ; and 
dexterously concludes that custom and education must be 
the sole grounds of popular belief. ^ The ancient paradox of 
Plutarch, that atheism is less pernicious than superstition,^ 
acquires a tenfold vigour, when it is adorned with the 
colours of his wit, and pointed with the acuteness of his 
logic. His critical dictionary is a vast repository of facts 



1 [Gibbon recorded on April 4, 1764 : " I finished Bayle's General Criticism 
on Maimbourg' s Histmy of Calvinism. No man was ever better qualified than 
Bayle for assuming the character of his adversary, showing his system in a new 
garb, and for availing himself of all places open to assault ; which is one of the 
greatest advantages of the sceptical philosophy " {Misc. Works, v., 480).] 
2 [" By education most have been misled ; 

So they believe, because they so were bred. 

The priest continues what the nurse began. 

And thus the child imposes on the man." 

(Dryden, The Hind and the Panther, iii. , 389.) 
" BosWELL. 'Then the vulgar, Sir, never can know they are right, but 
must submit themselves to the learned.' Johnson. ' To be sure. Sir. The 
vulgar are the children of the State, and must be taught like children.' Bos- 
well. ' Then, Sir, a poor Turk must be a Mahometan, just as a poor 
Englishman must be a Christian ? ' Johnson. ' Why, yes. Sir ; and what 
then ? This now is such stuff as I used to talk to my mother when I first 
began to think myself a clever fellow ; and she ought to have whipt me for 
it'" (Boswell's Johnson, ii., 14).] 

3 ["When Alexander had once abandoned himself to superstition, his mind 
was so worried by vain fears and anxieties that he turned the least incident 
which was in any respect strange and extraordinary into a sign or a prodigy. 
The Court swarmed with sacrificers, purifiers, and prognosticators ; these were 
all to be seen exercising their talents there. So true it is, that though the 
disbelief of religion and contempt of things divine is a great evil, yet superstition 
is a greater" (Langhorne's Plutarch's Lives, ed, 1809, iv. , 310). Gibbon, re- 
cording in 1764 that he had read Remarks on Bayle's Dictionary, added : 
' ' Intolerant superstition is more dangerous than impiety " [Misc. Works, v. , 462). 
" L'ath6isme ne peut faire aucun bien a la morale, et peut lui faire beau- 
coup de mal. II est presque aussi dangereux que le fanatisme" {CEuvres de 
Voltaire, xlii. , 245).] 



1753] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 79 

and opinions^^ and he balances the false religions ^ in his 
sceptical scales, till the opposite quantities (if I may use the 
language of algebra) annihilate each other. The wonderful 
power which he so boldly exercised, of assembling doubts 
and objections, had tempted him jocosely to assume the title 
of the v€cf)eX7]yepeTa Zens, the cloud-compelling Jove ; and in a 
conversation with the ingenious Abb6 (afterwards Cardinal) 
de Polignac, he freely disclosed his universal Pyrrhonism. 
" I am most truly (said Bayle) a protestant ; for I protest in- 
differently against all systems and all sects." ^ 

The academical resentment, which I may possibly have 
provoked, will prudently spare this plain narrative of my 
studies, or rather of my idleness ; and of the unfortunate 
event which shortened the term of my residence at Oxford. 
But it may be suggested, that my father was unlucky in the 
choice of a society, and the chance of a tutor.* It will 
perhaps be asserted, that in the lapse of forty years many 
improvements have taken place in the college and in the 
university. I am not unwilling to believe, that some tutors 
might have been found more active than Dr. Waldegrave, and 
less contemptible thah Dr. .^ About the same time, 

'^\Dictionnaire kistorique et critique, 1696. English translation in 4 vols., 
folio, 1710. Gibbon recorded in his Journal in 1762 : "If Bayle wrote his 
Dictionary to empty the various collections he had made, without any particular 
design, he could not have chosen a better plan. It permitted hira everything, 
and obliged him to nothing. By the double freedom of a dictionary and of 
notes he could pitch on what articles he pleased, and say what he pleased on 
those articles" {Misc. Works, v., 238. See BosweWs /oknsopt, i., 425).] 

2 [What Gibbon meant by "the false religions" is shown in one of his Me- 
moirs, where he writes that "Bayle balanced the religions of the earth" 
[Auto., p. 129).] 

3[" II est rapports dans un de ces dictionnaires historiques, oil la v6rit6 est si 
souvent n,igl6e avec le mensonge, que le cardinal de Polignac, en passant par 
Rotterdam, demanda a Bayle s'il 6tait anglican ou luth^rien, ou calviniste, et 
qu'il r^pondit, Je suis protestant ; car je proteste centre toutes les religions." 
Voltaire, after giving three reasons to prove this story false, continues : "II est 
vrai que Bayle avait dit quelquefois ce qu'on lui fait dire : il ajoutait qu'il dtait 
comme Jupiter assemble-nuages d'Homere " [CEuvres de Voltaire, xlii. , 211).] 

* [" Often," writes Parr, ' ' has it fallen in my way to lament the inconveniences 
which young men have suffered from a wrong choice of Colleges ; and for a 
wrong choice I have often been able to account by the partialities of parents 
who have been at the Universities " (Parr's Works, ii. , 560).] 

5 [Winchester. The next three paragraphs, which appeared in the first 
edition, were suppressed in the second. In Atito., p. 93, they are wrongly 
marked as "hitherto unpublished ".] 



80 EDWAED GIBBON [1753 

and in the same walk, a Bentham was still treading in the 
footsteps of a Burton, whose maxims he had adopted, and 
whose life he had published. The biographer indeed pi'e- 
ferred the school-logic to the new philosophy, Burgersdicius 
to Locke ; ^ and the hero appears, in his own writings, a stiff 
and conceited pedant. Yet even these men, according to the 
measure of their capacity, might be diligent and useful ; and 
it is recorded of Burton, that he taught his pupils what he 
knew ; some Latin, some Greek, some ethics and metaphysics ; 
referring them to proper masters for the languages and sciences 
of which he was ignorant.^ At a more recent period, many 
students have been attracted by the merit and reputation of 
Sir William Scott, then a tutor in University College, and 
now conspicuous in the profession of the civil law : my personal 
acquaintance with that gentleman has inspired me with a just 
esteem for his abilities and knowledge ; and I am assured 
that his lectures on history would compose, were they given 
to the public, a most valuable treatise.^ Under the auspices 
of the present Archbishop of York, Dr. Markham,* himself an 
eminent scholar, a more regular discipline has been introduced, 
as I am told, at Christ Church ; ^ a course of classical and 

1 [Gibbon quotes Edward Bentham's De Vita ei Moribus Johannis Burtoni. 
Oxon,, 1771. Burton taught Locke. " Burtonus Lockium aliosque recentioris 
notse Philosophos in Scholas adduxit, comites Aristotele non indignos" 
(p. 15). I find no mention of Burgersdicius. Perhaps Gibbon refers to Bentham's 
Reflexions upon Logick, ed. 1755, p. 7, where the author, after saying that " the 
Logical Theory contained in Mr. Locke's Essay, so far as it goes, generally 
coincides with that of the Schools," adds that the perusal of the Essay had better 
" be postponed until a man hath regularly received a competent degree of 
knowledge from its proper sources ". 

Mr. Shandy was a great logician though he had never ' ' heard one single 
lecture upon Burgersdicius" (Tristam Shandy, bk. i., ch. 19). Warburton, in 
a note on " He knew what's what " {Hudibras, part i., canto i. , line. 149) says : 
" It is a ridicule on Burgersdicius's Quid est quid ? whence came the expression 
of ' He knows what's what,' to denote a shrewd man".] 

2[Z)e Vita, etc., p. 15.] 

^ [For the lectures of Scott and Blackstone see Appendix 18.] 

^ [In the second edition Lord Sheffield changed this into ' ' Under the auspices 
of the late Deans". In Parr's Works, i. , 322, there is an interesting discussion 
about the merits of Markham and Hurd as preceptors, between the Prince of 
Wales, who had been taught by them, and Dr. Parr. For Markham see post, 
Appendix 7, and for Hurd/05/, pp. 146, 178.] 

5 This was written on the information Mr. Gibbon had received, and the 
observation he had made, previous to his late residence at Lausanne. During 
his last visit to England, he had an opportunity of seeing at Sheffield Place 



1753] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 81 

philosophical studies is proposed, and even pursued, in that 
numerous seminary: learning has been made a duty, a pleasure, 
and even a fashion ; and several young gentlemen do honour 
to the college in which they have been educated.^ According 
to the will of the donor, the profit of the second part of Lord 
Clarendon's History has been applied to the establishment of 
a riding-school, that the polite exercises might be taught, I 
know not with what success, in the university.^ The Vinerian 
professorship is of far more serious importance ; the laws of 
his country are the first science of an Englishman of rank and 
fortune, who is called to be a magistrate, and may hope to be 
a legislator. This judicious institution was coldly entertained 
by the graver doctors, who complained (I have heard the 
complaint) that it would take the young people from their 
books : but Mr. Viner's benefaction is not unprofitable, since 
it has at least produced the excellent commentaries of Sir 
William Blackstone.^ 

some young men of the college above alluded to ; he had great satisfaction in 
conversing with them, made many inquiries respecting their course of study, 
applauded the discipline of Christ Church, and the liberal attention shown 
by the Dean, to those whose only recommendation was their merit. Had 
Mr. Gibbon lived to revise this work, I am sure he would have mentioned the 
name of Dr. Jackson with the highest commendation. — Sheffield. 

[William Markham was Dean, 1767-77; Lewis Bagot, 1777-83; and Cyril 
Jackson, 1783-1809. "Jackson assisted largely in framing the Public Examina- 
tion Statute. He had a wonderful tact in managing that most unmanageable 
class of undergraduates, Noblemen. When he was walking in Tom Quad- 
rangle every cap was off the head, even of Tutors and noblemen, while he was 
insight" {0,07:! s Recollections of Oxford, p. 162). 

" In the Hall I once read the following notice of the day on which the next 
term was to begin : Jiiniores cujuscunque ordinis, die — , 7nens — , rebus divinis 
mane intersunto. Cyr. Jackson, Decanus. The words cujuscu?ique ordinis are 
a memorial of the glory of Jackson. He made no disgraceful tuft-hunting 
distinctions in favour of noblemen or gentlemen commoners " (H. D. Best's 
Memorials, p. loi).] 

1 [Dr. Parr justly reproached Gibbon with not inquiring whether Magdalen 
had not improved. He adds that the Demyships were no longer given upon the 
recommendation of friends, but after a strict examination, and that ' ' the exercises 
of the Demies during term were examined by a President [Routh] whose 
knowledge of the Greek philosophers, and Greek fathers, and of the Greek and 
Latin language was at least equal to that of Mr. Gibbon" (Parr's Wo7-ks, ii., 

55,5)-] 

2 [In the vain attempt to establish this riding-school Dr. Johnson was 
interested. The profit derived from the publication was allowed to accumulate. 
By i860 it amounted to _i^io,ooo. In 1872 it was spent in adding the Clarendon 
Laboratory to the University Museum {Letters of Dr. Johnson, i. , 309, «.).] 

"*[See Appendix 1.8.] 

6 



82 EDWARD GIBBON [i753 

After carrying me to Putney, to the house of his friend Mr. 
Mallet/ by whose philosophy I was rather scandalised than 
reclaimed, it was necessary for my father to form a new plan 
of education, and to devise some method which, if possible, 
might effect the cure of my spiritual malady. After much 
debate it was determined, from the advice and personal 
experience of Mr, Eliot (now Lord Eliot), to fix me, during 
some years, at Lausanne in Switzerland.^ Mr. Frey, a Swiss 
gentleman of Basil,^ undertook the conduct of the journey : 
we left London the 19th of June, crossed the sea from Dover 
to Calais, travelled post through several provinces of France, 
by the direct road of St, Quentin, Rheims, Langres, and 
Besangon, and arrived the 80th of June [1753] at Lausanne, 



1 The author of a Life of Bacon, which has been rated above its value ; of 
some forgotten poems and plays ; and of the pathetic ballad of William and 
Margaret. His tenets were deistical ; perhaps a stronger term might have been 
used. — Sheffield. 

[Gibbon wrote on May 24, 1776 : " His William and Margaret, his only 
good piece of poetry, is torn from him, and by the evidence of old manuscripts 
turns out to be the work of the celebrated Andrew Marvell, composed in the 
year 1670" {Corres., i., 284). Gibbon refers to Edward Thompson's ed. of 
Marvell, 1776, 4to, 3 vols, (see Gent. Mag., 1776, pp. 355, 559). 

"Sundry attempts," writes Mr. Wheatley, "were made to rob Mallet of 
the credit of his song. Captain Thompson, the editor of Andrew Marvell's 
Works, claimed it for Marvell, but this claim was even more ridiculous than 
those he set up against Addison and Watts " (Percy's Reliques, ed. 1891, iii., 

309)- 

Professor F. J. Child says that " a copy of the date 171 1, with the title 

William and Margaret, an Old Ballad, turns out to be substantially the piece 
which Mallet published as his own in 1724, Mallet's changes being com- 
paratively slight. William and Margaret is simply Fair Margaret and Sweet 

William rewritten in what used to be called an elegant style " {Eng. and Scot. 
Popular Ballads, iii. , 199). 

For Johnson's attack on Mallet as editor of Bolingbroke's Works see 
Boswell's Johnson, i., 268, and for his criticism of the Life of Bacon see 
Johnson's Works, viii. , 465. See also /oj/, p. 115.] 

2 [Three years later Eliot married Gibbon's first cousin (ante, p. 21). Eliot 
had travelled with Lord Chesterfield's son, under the care of the same tutor. 
Dr. Harte (Boswell's Johnson, iv., 333). They had spent some time at 
Lausanne (Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, i., 247). 

Chesterfield writing about his godson, who succeeded him in the Earldom, 
said : "I would take him away from thence [Westminster School] before he is 
fourteen, and then transport him to Geneva, the soberest and most decent 
place that I know of in Europe " (Chesterfield's Letters to A. C. Stanhope, ed. 
1890, p. 50). j 

^[Gibbon recorded in 1763: " Frey est philosophe, et fort instruit, mais 
froid et nullement homme d'esprit. II est las de courir le monde avec des jeunes 
fous" (Misc. Works, 1., 169).] 



1753] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE S3 

where I was immediately settled under the roof and tuition 
of Mr. Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister. 

The first marks of my father's displeasure rather astonished 
than afflicted me : when he threatened to banish, and disown, 
and disinherit a rebellious son, I cherished a secret hope that 
he would not be able or willing to effect his menaces ; and 
the pride of conscience encouraged me to sustain the honour- 
able and important part which I was now acting. My spirits 
were raised and kept alive by the rapid motion of my journey, 
the new and various scenes of the Continent, and the civility 
of Mr. Frey, a man of sense, who was not ignorant of books or 
the world. But after he had resigned me into Pavilliard's 
hands, and I was fixed in my new habitation, I had leisure 
to contemplate the strange and melancholy prospect before 
me. My first complaint arose from my ignorance of the 
language. In my childhood I had once studied the French 
grammar, and I could imperfectly understand the easy prose 
of a familiar subject. But when I was thus suddenly cast on 
a foreign land I found myself deprived of the use of speech 
and of hearing ; and, during some weeks, incapable not only 
of enjoying the pleasures of conversation, but even of asking 
or answering a question in the common intercourse of life. 
To a home-bred Englishman every object, every custom was 
offensive ; but the native of any country might have been 
disgusted with the general aspect of his lodging and enter- 
tainment. I had now exchanged my elegant apartment in 
Magdalen College for a narrow, gloomy street, the most 
unfrequented of an unhandsome town, for an old inconvenient 
house, and for a small chamber ill-contrived and ill-furnished, 
which, on the approach of winter, instead of a companionable 
fire, must be warmed by the dull invisible heat of a stove. ^ 



1 [" In 1753 Pavilliard was living in 17, Rue de la Cit6 derriere, now a police 
station. It has long vaulted corridors, and in the rear wide galleries, with 
pillars, commanding a view of the lake. The fapade is somewhat changed " 
(Read's Hist. Studies, ii., 276, where a view is given of the gallery). In 1754 
Pavilliard moved to " the parsonage (since pulled down) at the top of the 
Escalier des Grandes Roches, by the side of the old Hospital, now an Industrial 
School. It was at the bottom of a narrow court." From the southern 



84 EDWAED GIBBON [i753 

From a man 1 was again degraded to the dependence of a 
schoolboy. Mr. PaviUiard managed my expenses, which had 
been reduced to a diminutive state : I received a small 
monthly allowance for my pocket-money ; and helpless and 
awkward as I have ever been, I no longer enjoyed the indis- 
pensable comfort of a servant.^ My condition seemed as 
destitute of hope as it was devoid of pleasure : I was separated 
for an indefinite, which appeared an infinite term from my 
native country ; and I had lost all connexion with my Catholic 
friends. I have since reflected with surprise, that as the 
Romish clergy of every part of Europe maintain a close 
correspondence with each other, they never attempted, by 
letters or messages, to rescue me from the hands of the 
heretics, or at least to confirm my zeal and constancy in the 
profession of the faith. Such was my first introduction to 
Lausanne ; a place where I spent nearly five years with 
pleasure and profit, which I afterwards revisited without 
compulsion, and which I have finally selected as the most 
grateful retreat for the decline of my life. 

But it is the peculiar felicity of youth that the most 
unpleasing objects and events seldom make a deep or lasting 
impression ; it forgets the past, enjoys the present, and 
anticipates the future. ^ At the flexible age of sixteen I soon 
learned to endure, and gradually to adopt, the new forms of 

windows there was " a full view of the city below, with the lake and the 
mountains of Savoy" [ib., p. 274). 

Gibbon mentions [post, p. 117)" the uncleanly avarice of IVIadame PaviUiard ". 
" I was almost starved there with cold and hunger," he wrote thirty years later 
[Misc. Works, ii., 343 ; see also Auto., pp. 131, 230). 

Deyverdun recorded in his Diary in 1754 : " M. PaviUiard, the most honest 
man in every way that I know ; he is so "honest that he injures his own affairs " 
(Read's Hist. Studies, ii., 303).] 

1 [" Mr. Gibbon," wrote Malone, "is so exceedingly indolent that he never 
even pares his nails. His servant, while Gibbon is reading, takes up one of his 
hands, and when he has performed the operation lays it down, and then 
manages the other — the patient in the meanwhile scarcely knowing what is 
going on, and quietly pursuing his studies " (Prior's Malone, p. 382). 

Before he returned home he was allowed a servant. In a letter to Mile. 
Curchod he speaks of "mon valet" [Le Salon de Madame Necker, par Le 
Vicomte d'Haussonville, 1882, i. , 41).] 

2 [This paragraph is made of two ; of which the latter runs : ' ' The lively 
and flexible character of youth forgets," etc. {Auto., pp. 133, 231).] 



1753] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 85 

arbitrary manners : the real hardships of my situation were 
alienated by time. Had I been sent abroad in a more 
splendid style, such as the fortune and bounty of my father 
might have supplied, I might have returned home with the 
same stock of language and science as our countrymen usually 
import from the Continent. ^ An exile and a prisoner as I 
was, their example betrayed me into some irregularities of 
wine, of play, and of idle excursions '^ : but I soon felt the 
impossibility of associating with them on equal terms ; and 
after the departure of my first acquaintance, I held a cold 
and civil correspondence with their successors. This seclusion 
from English society was attended with the most solid 
benefits. In the Pays de Vaud, the French language is used 
with less imperfection than in most of the distant provinces 
of France : in Pavilliard's family, necessity compelled me to 
listen and to speak ; and if I was at first disheartened by the 
apparent slowness, in a few months I was astonished by the 
rapidity of my progress. My pronunciation was formed by 
the constant repetition of the same sounds ; the variety of 
words and idioms, the rules of grammar, and distinctions of 
genders, were impressed in my memory : ease and freedom 
were obtained by practice ; correctness and elegance by 
labour ; and before I was recalled home, French, in which I 
spontaneously thought, was more familiar than English to my 
ear, my tongue, and my pen. The first effect of this opening 
knowledge was the revival of my love of reading, which had 
been chilled at Oxford ; and I soon turned over, without much 
choice, almost all the French books in ray tutor's library. 
Even these amusements were pi'oductive of real advantage : 
my taste and judgment were now somewhat riper. I was 



^\_Post, p. i66.] 

2 [Pavilliard wrote to Mrs. Gibbon on Jan. 28, 1755 : ' ' His behaviour has 
been very regular, and has made no sHps, except that of gaming twice, and 
losing much more than I desired" (Misc. Works, i., 86). He was swindled 
of a hundred and ten guineas in two days' play by an Englishman named Gee. 
from whom he bought a horse, resolving to return to London in hopes of raising 
the money there. At Geneva Pavilliard overtook him, and brought him back 
to Lausanne [Carres., i., 3).] 



86 EDWARD GIBBON [i75s-55 

introduced to a new mode of style and literature : by the 
comparison of manners and opinions, my views were enlarged, 
my prejudices were corrected, and a copious voluntary abstract 
of the Histoire de I'Eglise et de I' Empire, by le Sueur,^ may be 
placed in a middle line between my childish and my manly 
studies. As soon as I was able to converse with the natives, 
I began to feel some satisfaction in their company ; my 
awkward timidity was polished and emboldened ; and I 
frequented^ for the first time^ assemblies of men and women. 
The acquaintance of the Pavilliards prepared me by degrees 
for more elegant society. I was received with kindness and 
indulgence in the best families of Lausanne ^ ; and it was in 
one of these that I formed an intimate and lasting connection 
with Mr. Deyverdun, a young man of an amiable temper and 
excellent understanding.'^ In the arts of fencing and dancing, 
small indeed was my proficiency ; and some months were idly 
wasted in the riding-school.'^ My unfitness to bodily exercise 
reconciled me to a sedentary life, and the horse, the favourite 



1 [' ' Histoire de I' Eglise et de V Empire, etc., par Jean le Sueur k Geneve 1674. 
It was reprinted with a continuation by Benedict Pictet in 1730-32" [Tlie 
Decline, ed. Milman, 1854, i., 44, «. ).] 

2 [He wrote to his aunt in 1755 : "I can say upon the whole, without vanity, 
that though I am the Englishman here who spends the least money, I am he 
who is the most generally liked " [Corres., i. , 8).] 

3[" In the garrets of La Grotte " (Gibbon's Lausanne house), writes General 
Read, " I came upon the hitherto unknown portraits of Gibbon and Deyverdun, 
attached to each other by a ribbon in the form of a bow. In early life Gibbon 
had red hair. This tint appears through the powder in the picture. His hair 
preserved at Sheffield Place, cut off after death, is a deep chestnut, the hue that 
auburn hair often assumes in later life ; it is also coarse, and displays here and 
there silver lines. A lock in the possession of M. de S^very of Mex, cut off at an 
early period, confirms the portrait. In the picture the eyes are large and dark 
and grey, unlike the light orbs painted by Sir Joshua. There is a fine reddish 
colour in the lips and cheeks ' ' (Hist. Studies, ii. , 360). The two portraits are 
given as frontispieces to the two volumes. For an account of Deyverdun and 
his family see ib., ii., 292.] 

■* [Eliot wrote from Lausanne in 1746 : ' ' The Dancing Master has six 
shillings a month, the Fencing Master has the same. The Riding Master has 
three guineas the first month and two afterwards" (Read's Hist. Studies, ii. , 
271). Gibbon was never, he says, " promoted to the use of stirrups or spurs ' 
[Atcto., p. 236). He must have learnt to ride in the Militia. When merely a 
captain, he often ' ' exercised the battalion in the absence of the two field 
officers". Later on he became Major and Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant 
[post, p. 168).] 



1753-55] MEMOIKS OF MY LIFE 87 

of my countrymen, never contributed to the pleasures of my 
youth. ^ 

My obligations to the lessons of Mr. Pavilliard, gratitude 
will not suffer me to forget : he was endowed with a clear 
head and a warm heart ; his innate benevolence had assuaged 
the spirit of the church ; he was rational, because he was 
moderate : in the course of his studies he had acquired a just 
though superficial knowledge of most branches of literature ; 
by long practice, he was skilled in the arts of teaching ; and 
he laboured with assiduous patience to know the character, 
gain the affection, and open the mind of his English pupil. 
As soon as we began to understand each other, he gently led 
me, from a blind and undistinguishing love of reading, into 
the path of instruction. I consented with pleasure that a 
portion of the morning hours should be consecrated to a plan 
of modern history and geography, and to the critical perusal 
of the French and Latin classics ; and at each step I felt 
myself invigorated by the habits of application and method. 
His prudence repressed and dissembled some youthful sallies ; 
and as soon as I was confirmed in the habits of industry and 
temperance, he gave the reins into my own hands. His 
favourable report of my behaviour and progress gradually 
obtained some latitude of action and expence ; and he wished 
to alleviate the hardships of my lodging and entertainment. 
The principles of philosophy were associated with the exam- 
ples of taste ; and by a singular chance, the book, as well as 
the man, which contributed the most effectually to my 
education, has a stronger claim on my gratitude than on my 
admiration. Mr. De Crousaz, the adversary of Bayle and 
Pope,2 is not distinguished by lively fancy or profound reflec- 

i[His contempt for the chase he shows in The Decline, iii., 135. After 
describing Gratian's skill in exercises he continues: "These qualifications, 
which might be useful to a soldier, were prostituted to the viler purposes of 
hunting ". In a later passage he writes : " The Caledonian hunt is a picture 
of savage life (Ovid, Meta., viii.). Thirty or forty heroes were leagued against 
a hog; the brutes (not the hog) quarrelled with a lady for the head" {ib., iv. , 

310)-] 

2 [It was Pope's Essay on Man that Crousaz attacked. According to 
Warburton he had trusted Resnel's translation, who often did not understand 
the English. Thus Pope's lines (i. , 277-78) — 



88 EDWARD GIBBON [1753-55 

tion ; and even in his own country, at the end of a few years^ 
his name and writings are almost obliterated. But his 
philosophy had been formed in the school of Locke, his 
divinity in that of Limborch ^ and Le Clerc ; in a long and 
laborious life, several generations of pupils were taught to 
think, and even to write ; his lessons rescued the academy of 
Lausanne from Calvinistic prejudice ; and he had the rare 
merit of diffusing a more liberal spirit among the clergy and 
people of the Pays de Vaud. His system of logic, which in 
the last editions has swelled to six tedious and prolix volumes, 
may be praised as a clear and methodical abridgment of the 
art of I'easoning, from our simple ideas to the most complex 
operations of the human understanding. This system I 
studied, and meditated, and abstracted, till I have obtained 
the free command of an universal instrument, which I soon 
presumed to exercise on my Catholic opinions. Pavilliard 
was not unmindful that his first task, his most important 
duty, was to reclaim me from the errors of popery. The 
intermixture of sects has rendered the Swiss clergy acute and 
learned on the topics of controversy ; and I have some of his 
letters in which he celebrates the dexterity of his attack, and 



' ' As full, as perfect in vile man that mourns 
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns " 
are translated : — 

" Dans un homme ignore, sous une humble chaumiere, 
Que dans le s^raphin, rayonnant de lumiere ". 
On this Crousaz remarked : " For all that, we sometimes find in persons of 
the lowest rank a fund of probity and resignation which preserves them from 
contempt" (Elwin's Pope, ii., 502). Voltaire describes him as " le philosophe 
le moins philosophe, et le bavard le plus bavard des Allemands " {Giuvres de 
Voltaii-e, xlvii., 551). He allowed, however, that in one part of his argument he 
convicted Pope of error {ib.^ x., 125). Crousaz was not a German, but a native 
of Lausanne. See also Boswell's Johnson, i., 157; v. 80; and Johnson's 
Works, v., 202; viii., 287, 289.] 

1 [ Gibbon recorded in 1762 : " I resolved to substitute for my leisure hours 
the BibliotMque of Le Clerc, as an inexhaustible source of amusement and 
instruction. . . . The second volume contains, pp. 20-51, P. Limborchi 
Theologia Christiatia. Moderate and judicious, the general character of the 
Ai"minian divines" {Misc. Works, v., 224, 227). 

Voltaire [CEuvres, xlii., 236), describing Limborch's controversy with a 
learned rabbi, says : " C'est peut-etre la premiere dispute entre deux th^ologiens 
dans laquelle on ne se soit pas dit des injures ".] 



1753-55] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 89 

my gradual concessions after a firm and well-managed defence. ^ 
I was willing, and I am now willing, to allow him a handsome 
share of the honour of my conversion ; yet I must observe, 
that it was principally effected by my private reflections ^ ; 
and I still remember my solitary transport at the discovery of 
a philosophical argument against the doctrine of transubstantia- 
tion : that the text of scripture, which seems to inculcate the 
real presence, is attested only by a single sense — our sight ; 
while the real presence itself is disproved by three of our 
senses — the sight, the touch, and the taste. -^ The various 



1 M. Pavilliard has described to me the astonishment with which he gazed 
on Mr. Gibbon standing before him : a thin little figure, with a large head, 
disputing and urging, with the greatest ability, all the best arguments that had 
ever been used in favour of popery. Mr. Gibbon many years ago became very 
fat and corpulent, but he had uncommonly small bones, and was very slight 
made. — Sheffield. 

[Pavilliard wrote to Gibbon's father on June 26, 1754: " Je croyais de 
semaine en semaine pouvoir vous annoncer que Monsieur votre fils avait 
entierement renonc6 aux fausses id^es qu'il avait embrassees ; mais il a fallu 
disputer le terrain pied a pied, et je n'ai pas trouv^ en lui un homme l^ger, et 
qui passe rapidement d'un sentiment a un autre. . . . Je dois vous dire encore 
que, quoique j'ai trouv^ M. votre fils tres ferme dans ses id^es, je I'ai trouv^ 
raisonnable, qu'il s'est rendu a la lumiere, et qu'il n'est pas, ce qu'on appelle, 
chicaneur" (Misc. Works, i., 82). 

" Mme Bugnion, who died about 1830 at the age of ninety-one, related to 
her gi-andchildren that she attended the catechism taught by M. Pavilliard, and 
that Gibbon was present. The ordinary age of admission for such instruction 
was from fourteen to sixteen " (Read's Hist. Studies, ii., 276).] 

2 ["Chez Gibbon tout s'etait pass6 dans la tete et dans le champ-clos de la 
dialectique ; un raisonnement lui avait apport6 son nouveau symbole, et un 
autre raisonnement le remporta. II pouvait se dire, pour sa propre satisfaction, 
qu'il ne devait I'un et I'autre changement qu'a sa lecture ou a sa meditation 
solitaire. Plus tard, quand il se flattait d'etre tout a fait impartial et indifferent 
sur les croyances, il est permis de supposer que, meme sans se I'avouer, il 
nourrissait contre la pens^e religieuse une secrete et froide rancune comma 
envers un adversaire qui vous a un jour atteint au d6faut de la cuirasse, et qui 
vous a blesse " (Canseries dii Lundi, viii. , 438).] 

^ [Tillotson had anticipated him in this argument in his Sermons preached 
upon Several Occasions, ed. 1673, p. 316, where he says: "Supposing the 
Scripture to be a Divine Revelation, and that these words [This is My Body), 
if they be in Scripture, must necessarily be taken in the strict and literal sense, 
I ask now, What greater evidence any man has that these words {This is My 
Body) are in the Bible than every man has that the bread is not changed in the 
sacrament? Nay, no man has so much, for we have only the evidence of one 
sense that these words are in the Bible, but that the bread is not changed we 
have the concurring testimony of several of our senses." Hume speaks of it as 
' ' an argument against the real pj-esence, which is as concise and elegant and 
strong as any argument can possibly be supposed against a doctrine so little 
worthy of a serious reputation" (Hume's Essays, ed. 1770, iii. , 153). Johnson 
quotes it with approval (Boswell's Johnson, v., 71).] 



90 EDWARD GIBBON ] 1753-56 

articles of the Romish creed disappeared like a dream ; and 
after a full conviction, on Christmas-day, 1754, I received the 
sacrament in the church of Lausanne. It was here that I 
suspended my religious inquiries, acquiescing with implicit 
belief in the tenets and mysteries, which are adopted by the 
general consent of Catholics and Protestants.^ 

Such, from my arrival at Lausanne, during the first eighteen 
or twenty months (July 1753 — March 1755), were my useful 
studies, the foundation of all my future improvements. But 
every man who rises above the common level has received two 
educations : the first frora his teachers ; the second, more 
personal and important, from himself. He will not, like the 
fanatics of the last age, define the moment of grace ; but he 
cannot forget the era of his life, in which his mind has ex- 
panded to its proper form and dimensions. My worthy tutor 
had the good sense and modesty to discern how far he could 
be useful : as soon as he felt that I advanced beyond his speed 
and measure, he wisely left me to my genius ; and the hours 
of lesson were soon lost in the voluntary labour of the whole 
morning, and sometimes of the whole day. The desire of 
prolonging my time, gradually confirmed the salutary habit 
of early rising, to which I have always adhered, with some 
regard to seasons and situations ; but it is happy for my eyes 
and my health, that my temperate ardour has never been 
seduced to trespass on the hours of the night. During the 
last three years of my residence at Lausanne, I may assume 
the merit of serious and solid application ; but I am tempted 
to distinguish the last eight months of the year 1755, as the 
period of the most extraordinary diligence and rapid progress. 
In my French and Latin translations I adopted an excellent 
method, which, from my own success, I would recommend to 
the imitation of students. I chose some classic writer, such 
as Cicero and Vertot,^ the most approved for purity and 

1 [See Appendix 19.] 

-[It was probably Vertot's Revolutions de la Ripublique Romaine that 
Gibbon thus treated. See Misc. Works, v., 509, for a criticism of this book, 
and ib., p. 389, where he describes Vertot as "an author whose works are read 
with the same pleasure as romances, to which in other respects they bear too 



1753-55] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 91 

elegance of style. I translated, for instance, an epistle of 
Cicero into French ; and after throwing it aside, till the 
words and phrases were obliterated from my memory, I re- 
translated my French into such Latin as I could find ; and 
then compared each sentence of my imperfect version, with 
the ease, the grace, the propriety of the Roman orator. A 
similar experiment was made on several pages of the Revolu- 
tions of Vertot ; I turned them into Latin, returned them 
after a sufficient interval into my own French, and again 
scrutinized the resemblance or dissimilitude of the copy and the 
original. By degrees I was less ashamed, by degrees I was 
more satisfied with myself; and I persevered in the practice 
of these double translations, which filled several books, till I 
had acquired the knowledge of both idioms, and the command 
at least of a correct style. ^ This useful exercise of writing 
was accompanied and succeeded by the more pleasing occupa- 
tion of reading the best authors. The perusal of the Roman 
classics was at once my exercise and reward. Dr. Middleton's 
History, which I then appreciated above its true value, natur- 
ally directed me to the writings of Cicero. ^ The most perfect 
editions, that of Olivet,^ which may adorn the shelves of the 

much resemblance". In The Decline, vii., 27, he points out that "Vertot 
betrays his ignorance in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the Bithynian 
hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land ".] 

i[" II (Gibbon) se rompit k 6crire correctement tant en franpais qu'en latin, 
et en acqu^rant une 6gale facility a s'exprimer en diverses langues, il perdit 
moins une originality d'expression pour laquelle il semblait peu fait, qu'il 
n'acquit I'^l^gance, la lumiere et la clart^ qui deviendront ses m^rites habituels " 
{Causeries du Liindi, viii. , 442). In clearness Gibbon sometimes fails, not 
perhaps in his Autobiography, hvX in his History. His unwillingness to repeat a 
name, and his aim at effect too often make his meaning doubtful at the first 
reading.] 

2 [Horace Walpole wrote from Florence on March 25, 1741 : "I wait with 
some patience to see Dr. Middleton's Tully, as I read the greatest part of it in 
manuscript ; though indeed that is rather a reason for my being impatient to 
read the rest. If Tully can receive any additional honour, Dr. Middleton is 
most capable of giving it " (Walpole's Letters, i., 67. Ante, p. 67).] 

** [Voltaire, mentioning him in his Siicle de Louis XIV, says : "Son age et 
son mdrite sont notre excuse de I'avoir plac^, ainsi que le president H^nault, 
dans une liste ou nous nous ^tions fait une loi de ne parler que des morts " 
[CEuvres de Voltaire, xvii. , 80). D'Alembert wrote of him to Voltaire : " C'6tait 
un passable acad^micien, mais un bien mauvais confrere, qui haissait tout le 
monde, et qui, entre nous, ne vous aimait pas plus qu'un autre" {ib., Ixii., 
467).] 



92 EDWARD GIBBON [1753-55 

rich, that of Ernesti,i which should lie on the table of the 
learned, were not in my power.^ For the familiar epistles I 
used the text and English commentary of Bishop Ross ^ ; but 
my general edition was that of Verburgius, published at 
Amsterdam in two large volumes in folio, with an indifferent 
choice of various notes. I read, with application and pleasure, 
all the epistles, all the orations, and the most important trea- 
tises of rhetoric and philosophy ; and as I read, I applauded 
the observation of Quintilian, that every student may judge 
of his own proficiency, by the satisfaction which he receives 
from the Roman orator.* I tasted the beauties of language, 
I breathed the spirit of freedom, and I imbibed from his pre- 
cepts and examples the public and private sense of a man. 
Cicero in Latin, and Xenophon ^ in Greek, are indeed the two 
ancients whom I would first propose to a liberal scholar ; not 
only for the merit of their style and sentiments, but for the 
admirable lessons, which may be applied almost to every 
situation of public and private life. Cicero's epistles may in 
particular afford the models of every form of correspondence, 
from the careless effusions of tenderness and friendship, to 
the well-guarded declaration of discreet and dignified resent- 
ment. After finishing this great author, a library of eloquence 
and reason, I formed a more extensive plan of reviewing the 
Latin classics,*^ under the four divisions of, 1. historians, 2. 

1 [Published in 1737-39.] 

2 [In the second edition Lord Sheffield changed this into ' ' were not within 
my reach " {Misc. Works, i. , 89).] 

■^ [John Ross published Cicero's EplstolcB ad Familiares in 1749. He was 
made Bishop of Exeter in 1778.] 

•*[" Quare non immerito ab hominibus setatis suae regnare in judiciis dictus 
est, apud posteros vero id consecutus, ut Cicero jam non hominis nomen sed 
eloquentise habeatur. Hunc igitur spectemus, hoc propositum nobis sit 
exemplum, ille se profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit " {Inst. Orator., 
X., i., 112).] 

5 [Post, p. 184.] 

•^Journal, January 1756. I determined to read over the Latin authors in 
order ; and read this year, Virgil, Sallust, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Valerius 
Maximus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Quintus Curtius, Justin, Floras, Plautus, 
Terence, and Lucretius. I also read and meditated Locke upon the Under- 
standing. — Gibbon. [It was on January 19, 1756, that he formed this de- 
termination [Alisc. Works, iii. , Preface, p. 4). The record of the year's work 
must have been made in January, 1757.] 



1756-58] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 93 

poetSj 3. orators, and 4. philosophers, in a chronological series, 
from the days of Plautus and Sallust, to the decline of the 
language and empire of Rome : and this plan, in the last 
twenty-seven months of my residence at Lausanne (January 
1756 — April 1758), I jjear/y accomplished. Nor was this re- 
view, however rapid, either hasty or superficial. I indulged 
nayself in a second and even a third perusal of Terence, Virgil, 
Horace, Tacitus, etc., and studied to imbibe the sense and 
spirit most congenial to my own. I never suffered a difficult 
or corrupt passage to escape, till I had viewed it in every light 
of which it was susceptible : though often disappointed, I 
always consulted the most learned or ingenious commentators, 
Torrentius and Dacier on Horace, Catrou ^ and Servius on 
Virgil, Lipsius on Tacitus, Meziriac on Ovid,^ etc. ; and in 
the ardour of my inquiries, I embraced a large circle of 
historical and critical erudition. My abstracts of each book 
were made in the French language : my observations often 
branched into particular essays ; and I can still read, without 
contempt,^ a dissertation of eight folio pages on eight lines 
(287-294) of the fourth Georgic of Virgil. Mr. Deyverdun, 
my friend, whose name will be frequently repeated, had joined 
with equal zeal, though not with equal perseverance, in the 
same undertaking. To him every thought, every composition 
was instantly communicated ; with him I enjoyed the benefits 
of a free conversation on the topics of our common studies.* 

^["Catrou {Franfois), r6 en 1659, j6suite. II a fait avec le pere Rouill6 
vingt tomes de V Histoire ro7naine. lis ont cherch^ I'^loquence, et n'ont pas 
trouv6 la precision " [CEicvres de Voltaire, xvii., 62).] 

2 [Gibbon, in the record of his studies in 1762, says: "I consulted 
Meziriac's Ovid, in relation to the omens from the flight of birds. From the 
materials which he laid before me I conceived a much clearer notion of the 
subject than he had himself" (Misc. U orks, v., 219).] 

^ [In one of his Memoirs he uses these words very condescendingly. Speak- 
ing of the Arabian Nights he says : " In my present maturity I can revolve with- 
out contempt that pleasing medley of Oriental manners and supernatural 
fictions" {Auto., p. 118). Perhaps Gibbon remembered that Chesterfield, 
among "the frivolous and idle books" which his son should avoid, had 
mentioned "the Oriental ravings and extravagancies of the Arabian Nights" 
{Letters to his So?i, ii., 335). 

For the dissertation on Virgil see Misc. Works, iv. , 446. ] 

* [General Read, who found Gibbon's "diploma as a Master Mason", 
describes him and Deyverdun as " earnest Masons". Gibbon became a Free- 



94 EDWAED GIBBON [1756-58 

But it is scarcely possible for a mind endowed with any 
active curiosity to be long conversant with the Latin classics, 
without aspiring to know the Greek originals, whom they 
celebrate as their masters, and of whom they so warmly 
recommend the study and imitation ; 

Vos exemplaria Grseca 



Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.^ 

It was now that I regretted the early years which had 
been wasted in sickness or idleness, or more ^ idle reading ;. 
that I condemned the perverse method of our schoolmasters, 
who, by first teaching the mother-language, might descend 
with so much ease and perspicuity to the origin and etymo- 
logy of a derivative idiom.^ In the nineteenth year of my 
age I determined to supply this defect ; and the lessons of 
Pavilliard again contributed to smooth the entrance of the 
way, the Greek alphabet, the grammar, and the pronuncia- 
tion according to the French accent. At my earnest request 
we presumed to open the Iliad ; and I had the pleasure of 
beholding, though darkly and through a glass,* the true 
image of Homer, whom I had long since admired in an 
English dress. After my tutor had left me to myself, I 
worked my way through about half the Iliad,- and afterwards 
interpreted alone a large portion of Xenophon and Herodotus. 

mason at this time, induced no doubt by his friend and his friend's uncle 
{Hist. Studies, ii. , 297, 367). That he was " earnest " there is nothing to show, 
and is inconsistent with his character, unless with the character of his early 
youth. He never mentions the Society in his writings, so far as I know.] 

^ [Make the Greek authors your supreme delight, 
Read them by day, and study them by night. 

(Francis' Horace, De Arte Poefica, 1. 268.)] 

2 |^i0 Lord Sheffield's editions, mere.] 

3 ["The Greek seems to be, in a great measure, a simple, uncompounded 
language, formed from the primitive jargon of those wandering savages, the 
ancient Hellenians and Pelasgians. . . . The Latin is a composition of the 
Greek and of the ancient Tuscan languages" (Adam Smith, Formation of 
Languages. Theory of Moral Se?itime?its , ed. 1801, ii. , 383). 

While Gibbon was writing his Autobiography, Sir William Jones was teach- 
ing in India ' ' that no philologer could examine Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin 
without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which 
perhaps no longer exists " {Life of Jones, ed. 1815, p. 468).] 

4 [" For now we see through a glass, darkly " (i Co'- . xiii. 12).] 



1756-58] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 95 

But my ardour, destitute of aid and emulation, was gradually 
cooled, and, from the barren task of searching words in a 
lexicon, I withdrew to the free and familiar conversation of 
Virgil and Tacitus. Yet in my residence at Lausanne I had 
laid a solid foundation, which enabled me, in a more pro- 
pitious season, to prosecute the study of Grecian literature. 
From a blind idea of the usefulness of such abstract 
science, my father had been desirous, and even pressing, 
that I should devote some time to the mathematics ; nor 
could I refuse to comply with so reasonable a wish. During 
two winters I attended the private lectures of Monsieur de 
Traytorrens, who explained the elements of algebra and 
geometry, as far as the conic sections of the Marquis de 
THopital,! and appeared satisfied with my diligence and 
improvement. But as my childish propensity for numbers 
and calculations was ^totally extinct, ^ I was content to receive 
the passive impression of my professor's lectures without any 
active exercise of my own powers. As soon as I understood 
the principles, I relinquished for ever the pursuit of the 
mathematics ; ^ nor can I lament that I desisted, before my 
mind was hardened by the habit of rigid demonstration, so 
destructive of the finer feelings of moral evidence, which 
must, however, determine the actions and opinions of our 
lives.^ I listened with more pleasure to the proposal of 
studying the law of nature and nations, which was taught 
in the academy of Lausanne by Mr. Vicat, a professor of 
some learning and reputation. But instead of attending his 
public or private course, I preferred in my closet the lessons 
of his masters, and my own reason. Without being disgusted 

1 [" L'Hospital {Fraiifois, marquis de), n^ en i65i, le premier qui ait 6crit en 
France sur le calcul invent6 par Newton, qu'il appela les infinimenf fetits ; 
c'^tait alors un prodige. Mort en 1704 " {CEvvres de Voltaire, xvii., 120).] 

2 \Ante, p. 31.] 

2 [In 1762 he thought of taking up the pursuit again, and consulted ' ' a very 
able mathematician " about the best course of study {Misc. Works, ii., 44).] 

* [J. S. Mill, writing of the school logic, continues : " The boasted influence 
of mathematical studies is nothing to it ; for in mathematical processes none of 
the real difficulties of correct ratiocination occur" (Mill's Auto., ed. 1873, p. 
19)-] 



96 EDWAED GIBBON [1756-58 

by Grotius or PufFendorf, I studied in their writings the duties 
of a man, the rights of a citizen, the theory of justice (it is, 
alas ! a theory), and the laws of peace and war, which 
have had some influence on the practice of modern Europe. 
My fatigues were alleviated by the good sense of their 
commentator Barbeyrac.^ Locke's Treatise of Government 
instructed me in the knowledge of Whig principles, which 
are rather founded in reason than experience, ^ but my delight 
was in the frequent perusal of Montesquieu, whose energy 
of style, and boldness of hypothesis, were powerful to awaken 
and stimulate the genius of the age. The logic of De Crousaz 
had prepared me to engage with his master Locke and his 
antagonist Bayle ^ ; of whom the former may be used as a 
bridle, and the latter applied as a spur, to the curiosity of 
a young philosopher. According to the nature of their 
respective works, the schools of argument and objection, I 
carefully went through the Essay on Human Understanding, 
and occasionally consulted the most interesting articles of 
the Philosophic Dictionary. In the infancy of my reason I 
turned over, as an idle amusement, the most serious and 
important treatise : in its maturity, the most trifling per- 
formance could exercise my taste or judgment, and more 
than once I have been led by a novel ^ into a deep and 

1 [Gibbon said of reading : " This nourishment is easily converted into 
poison. Salmasius had read as much as Grotius, perhaps more. But their 
different modes of reading made the one an enUghtened philosopher, and the 
other, to speak plainly, a pedant puffed up with an useless erudition " {Misc. 

Works, v., 209). 

" Ce n'est point assur^ment I'ouvrage immense de Grotius, sur le droit pr6- 
tendu de la guerre et de la paix, qui a rendu les hommes moins f^roces ; ce ne 
sont pas ses citations de Carn^ade, de Quintilien . . . ; ce n'est point parce 
qu'apr^s le deluge il fut d^fendu de manger les animaux avec leur ame et leur 
sang, comme le rapporte Barbeyrac son commentateur. Ce n'est point, en un 
mot, par tous les argumens profond^ment frivoles de Grotius et de Puffendorf," 
etc. (CEuvres de Voltaire, xii. , 235).] 

2 [No experience could teach Gibbon. ' ' With many a sincere and silent 
vote", session after session, he had supported the Tory ministry in the war 
with our colonies, and had done what he could to bring England to the brink 
of ruin [post, p. 191).] 

•* {Ante, p. 76.] 

* [Miss Burney recorded of her novel Cecilia, on the authority of Reynolds, 
that " Gibbon said he read the whole five volumes in a day " (Mme. D'Arblay's 
Diary, ii. , 196).] 



1756-58] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 97 

instructive train of thinking. But I cannot forbear to men- 
tion three particular books, since they may have remotely 
contributed to form the historian of the Roman empire. 1. 
From the Provincial Letters of Pascal, vrhich almost every 
year I have perused with new pleasure, I learned to manage 
the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on subjects 
of ecclesiastical solemnity, ^ 2. The Life of Julian, by the 
Abbe de la Bleterie,^ first introduced me to the man and 
the times ; and I should be glad to recover my first essay 
on the truth of the miracle which stopped the rebuilding 
of the temple of Jerusalem.^ 3. In Giannone's Civil History 
of Naples I observed with a critical eye the progress and 
abuse of sacerdotal power, and the revolutions of Italy in 
the darker ages.^ This various reading, which I now con- 

1 [In one of his Memoirs he associates Giannone with Pascal as his teacher 
of irony [Auio., p. 235).] 

2 [Gibbon recorded in his journal in 1764 : " The History of /avian, and the 
Translation of sofne Works of Julian, by the Abb^ de la Bleterie : admirable 
in point of erudition, taste, elegance, and I will add, moderation. Julian was 
a Pagan, but the Abb6 hates only the Jesuits" [Misc. Works, v., 463). 
Though in The Decline Gibbon often praises him, yet in one passage (ii. , 469) 
he speaks of his "superstitious complacency," and in another (ib., p. 526) he 
blames the "political metaphysics " by which "he pronounced that Jovian was 
not bound to execute his promise". Voltaire writes of him and his Vie^ de 
Julien: "II n'appartient point a un pretre d'&rire I'histoire ; il faut etre 
d&int6ress6 sur tout, et un pretre ne Test sur rien " [GEuvres de Voltaire, xlvi., 
429). Aiming at his style Voltaire says: "On est parvenu jusqu'i rendre 
Tacite ridicule" [ib., xix., 392). S&e post, p. 306.] 

3 [Gibbon, after describing the miracle, adds in a note : ' ' Dr. Lardner, 
perhaps alone of the Christian critics, presumes to doubt the truth of this 
famous miracle. The silence of Jerome would lead to a suspicion that the 
same story, which was celebrated at a distance, might be despised on the spot 
[The Decline, ii. , 460).] 

4 ["The subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction has been involved in a mist of 
passion, of prejudice, and of interest. Two of the fairest books which have 
fallen into my hands are the Institutes of Canon Law, by the Abb6 de Fleury, 
and the Civil History of Naples, by Giannone. Their moderation was the 
effect of situation as well as of temper. Fleury was a French ecclesiastic, who 
respected the authority of the parliaments ; Giannone was an Italian lawyer, 
who dreaded the power of the Church" (The Decline, ii., 322). 

" Giannone est le seul qui ait jet6 quelque jour sur I'origine de la domination 
supreme affect^e par les papes sur le royaume de Naples. II a rendu en cela 
un service ^ternel aux rois de ce pays ; et pour recompense, il a €t€ abandonn^ 
par I'empereur Charles VI, alors roi de Naples, k la persecution des j^suites ; 
trahi depuis par la plus lache des perfidies, sacrifi6 a la cour de Rome, il a fini 
sa vie dans la captivit6 " (CEuvres de Voltaire, xxvi. , 80). 

Johnson quotes Giannone's saying to a monk, " who wanted what he called to 
convert him : ' Tu sei santo, raa tu non sei filosofo ' " (Boswell's Johnson, iv., 3).] 

7 



98 EDWARD GIBBON [1856-58 

ducted with discretion, was digested, according to the precept 
and model of Mr. Locke, into a large common-place book ^ ; 
a practice, however, which I do not strenuously recommend. 
The action of the pen will doubtless imiprint an idea on the 
mind as well as on the paper : but I much question whether 
the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the 
waste of time ; and I must agree with Dr. Johnson, (Idler, 
No. 74) " that what is twice read, is commonly better re- 
membered, than what is transcribed ".^ 

During two years^ if I forget some boyish excursions of a 
day or a week, I was fixed at Lausanne ; but at the end of 
the third summer, my father consented that I should make 
the tour of Switzerland with Pavilliard : and our short absence 
of one month (September 21st — October 20th, 1755) was a 
reward and relaxation of my assiduous studies. The fashion 
of climbing the mountains and viewing ^ the Glaciers, had not 
yet been introduced by foreign travellers, who seek the 
sublime beauties of nature.* But the political face of the 
country is not less diversified by the forms and spirit of so 
many various republics, from the jealous government of the 
fern ^ to the licentious freedom of the manij. I contemplated 
with pleasure the new prospects of men and m9,nners ; though 
my conversation with the natives would have been more free 



1 [A New Method of makiiig Common- Place Books, written by the late Learned 
Mr. John Lock\sic\. Translated from the French. London : 1706. According 
to the Preface, Locke drew it up when abroad, " and gave it to Le Clerc, 
who published it in French in the second tome of the BibliotMque Universelle ".] 

2 [Johnson goes on to say : " The true art of memory is the art of attention ". 
He himself "had written, in the form of Mr. Locke's Common-Place Book, a 
variety of hints for essays on different subjects " (Boswell's Johnson, i. , 204).] 

3 [In Lord Sheffield's editions, reviewing.] 

■•[In the Index to the Gentleman's Magazine, from 1731 to 1786, I cannot 
find a single entry referring to the glaciers or mountains of Switzerland, or to 
mountain chmbing. It was in 1786 that Mont Blanc was first ascended. In 
1784 Gibbon wrote : " During the summer Lausanne is possibly, after Spa, one 
of the most favourite places of general resort. The voyage of Switzerland, 
the Alps, and the Glaciers is become a fashion" (Corres., ii. , 116; see also 
post, p. 221).] 

s [Vaud at this time was governed by Berne, and Berne was governed by an 
aristocracy (post, p. 238). Gibbon, in a letter " probably written about the time 
of his first leaving Lausanne," attacked Berne's government of Vaud {Misc. 
Works, ii. , i).] 



1756-58] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 99 

and instructive, had I possessed the German, as well as the 
French language. We passed through most of the principal 
towns of Switzerland ; Neufchatel, Bienne, Soleurre, Arau, 
Baden, Zurich, Basil, and Berne. In every place we visited 
the churches, arsenals, libraries, and all the most eminent 
persons ; and after my return, I digested my notes in four- 
teen or fifteen sheets of a French journal, which I despatched 
to my father, as a proof that my time and his money had not 
been mis-spent. Had I found this journal among his papers, 
I might be tempted to select some passages ^ ; but I will not 
transcribe the printed accounts, and it may be sufficient to 
notice a remarkable spot, which left a deep and lasting 
impression on my memory. From Zurich we proceeded to the 
Benedictine Abbey of Einsidlen, more commonly styled Our 
Lady of the Hermits. I was astonished by the profuse osten- 
tation of riches in the poorest corner of Europe ; amidst a 
savage scene of woods and mountains, a palace appears to 
have been erected by magic ; and it was erected by the 
potent magic of religion. ^ A crowd of palmers and votaries 
was prostrate before the altar. The title and worship of the 
Mother of God provoked my indignation '^ ; and the lively 
naked image of superstition suggested to me, as in the same 
place it had done to Zuinglius, the most pressing argument 
for the reformation of the Church.* About two years after 

1 [General Read has printed " the greater portion of it ". He found it in the 
garret of La Grotte [Hist. Studies, ii., 314, 367).] 

2 [Gibbon had said the same in his " Introduction a I'Histoire G6n(^rale de la 
R^publique des Suisses " [Misc. Works, iii. , 273): " Le contraste de ses 
batiments magnifiques avec le pays affreux qui les entoure fait naitre I'idee des 
palais enchantfe, qui paraissaient tout a coup au milieu des d&erts. La magie 
d' Einsidlen est celle de la superstition, qui lui attire encore de toutes les pro- 
vinces voisines une foule de pdlerins et d'offrandes. " See also ib., p. 508. 

According to Baedecker [Switzerland, ed. 1893, p. 98), " the pilgrims number 
about 150,000 annually ". The Abbey is in Schwyz.] 

s [Gibbon, writing of the years a.d. 429-431, says: "The Blessed Virgin 
Nestorius revered as the mother of Christ, but his ears were offended with the 
rash and recent title of Mother of God " [The Decline, v., iii).] 

*[ Zuinglius was the parish priest of Einsidlen. So early as 1516 he taught 
his congregation to seek salvation, not in the Holy Virgin, but in the merit 
and intercession of Jesus Christ [Histoire de la Reformation de la Suisse, 
par Abraham Ruchat, 1727, i. , 9, 41, 292). 

Chesterfield wrote to his son, who had visited this place eight years before 

[LofC. 



100 EDWARD GIBBON [1756-58 

this tour, I passed at Geneva a useful and agreeable month ; 
but this excursion, and short visits in the Pays de Vaud, did 
not materially interrupt my studious and sedentary life at 
Lausanne. 

My thirst of improvement, and the languid state of science 
at Lausanne,^ soon prompted me to solicit a literary correspon- 
dence with several men of learning, whom I had not an 
opportunity of personally consulting. 1. In the perusal of 
Livy (xxx., 44), I had been stopped by a sentence in a speech 
of Hannibal, which cannot be reconciled by any torture with 
his character or argument. The commentators dissemble, or 
confess their perplexity. It occurred to me, that the change 
of a single letter, by substituting oiio instead of odio, might re- 
store a clear and consistent sense ; but I wished to weigh my 
emendation in scales less partial than my own. I addressed 
myself to M. Crevier, the successor of RoUin, and a professor 
in the university of Paris, who had published a large and 
valuable edition of Livy. His answer was speedy and polite ; 
he praised my ingenuity, and adopted my conjecture. ^ 2. I 
maintained a Latin correspondence, at first anonymous, and 
afterwards in my own name, with Professor Breitinger of 
Zurich, the learned editor of a Septuagint .Bible. In our 
frequent letters we discussed many questions of antiquity, 



Gibbon : "I do not wonder that you were surprised at the credulity and 
superstition of the Papists at Einsiedlen, and at their absurd stories of their 
chapel. But remember, at the same time, that errors and mistakes, however 
gross, in matters of opinion, if they are sincere, are to be pitied, but not 
punished, nor laughed at" {Letters to his Son, i. , 272).] 

1 [Gibbon, writing of the government of Berne, said: " Indiquez moi 
quelque ^tablissement vraiment utile que vous deviez au souverain. Mais ne 
m'indiquez pas I'acad^mie de Lausanne, fondle par des vues de devotion, dans 
la chaleur d'une reformation, n^glig^e depuis, et toujours acaddmie " {Misc. 

Works, ii. , 17). For "la bibliotheque publique . . . assez piteuse" de Lau- 
sanne see post, p. 223, n.'\ 

2 [The line as it stood was : ' ' Nee esse in vos odio vestro consultum ab 
Romanis credatis ". Crevier, in his reply, accepting Gibbon's correction, added 
to it by changing i?t vos into in his. ' ' Alors la phrase sera completement 
bonne. Nee esse in his otio vest7-o consultum ab Romanis c7-edatis. ' Ne pensez 
pas que dans ces mesures que prennent les Romains, pour vous 6ter toutes vos 
forces, et en vous interdisant la guerre avec I'^tranger, ils aient eu pour objet 
votre tranquillity et votre repos ' " {Misc. Works, i. , 435). In my copy of 
Crevier's Livy, Oxford, 1825, the old reading remains.] 



1756-58] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 101 

many passages of the Latin classics.^ I proposed my interpre- 
tations and amendments. His censures, for he did not spare 
my boldness of conjectui'e, were sharp and strong; and I was 
encouraged by the consciousness of my strength, when I could 
stand in free debate against a critic of such eminence and 
erudition. 3. I corresponded on similar topics with the 
celebrated Professor Matthew Gesner, of the University of 
Gottingen ; and he accepted, as courteously as the two former, 
the invitation of an unknown youth. But his abilities might 
possibly be decayed ; his elaborate letters were feeble and 
prolix ; and when I asked his proper direction, the vain old 
man covered half a sheet of paper with the foolish enumera- 
tion of his titles and offices.^ 4. These Professors of Paris, 
Zurich, and Gottingen, were strangers, whom I presumed to 
address on the credit of their name ; but Mr. Allamand, 
minister at Bex, was my personal friend, with whom I main- 
tained a more free and interesting correspondence. He was 
a miaster of language, of science, and, above all, of dispute ; 
and his acute and flexible logic could support, with equal 
address, and perhaps with equal indifference, the adverse sides 
of every possible question. His spirit was active, but his pen 
had been indolent. Mr. Allamand had exposed himself to 
much scandal and reproach, by an anonymous letter (1745) 
to the Protestants of France,^ in which he labours to persuade 
them that public worship is the exclusive right and duty of the 
state, and that their numerous assemblies of dissenters and 
rebels were not authorised by the law or the gospel. His 



i[Two of Breitinger's letters, written in Latin, are given in Gibbon's Misc. 
Works, i., 456, 477. In the second, he addresses his correspondent, who was 
two months short of twenty, as " Praeclarissime ac Nobihssime Vir".] 

2 ["A Monsieur, Monsieur Gesner, Conseiller de la Cour de sa Majesti^ 
Britannique, Professeur Ordinaire de 1' University de Gottingue, Inspecteur 
G6n6ral des Ecoles de I'EIectorat de Hanovre, Biblioth^caire de 1' University, 
Directeur du S^minaire Philologique, President de la Soci^t6 Royale de 
I'Eloquence Alleraande, et Membre de la Soci6t6 Royale de Sciences de 
Gottingue, etc." He gave, however, as an alternative, an address of only two 
lines {ib., i., 514).] 

•* \Lettre sur les assemblies des religionnaires en Languedoc, dcrite a un 
gentilhoinme protestant de cette province , par M.-D.-L. F.-D.-M., imprimi^e en 
France sous la fausse indication de Rotterdam, 1745 [Nouv. Biog. Gin.).'\ 



102 EDWARD GIBBON [1756-58 

style is aiiimatedj his arguments specious ; and if the papist 
may seem to lurk under the mask of a protestant, the philo- 
sopher is concealed under the disguise of a papist. After 
some trials in France and Holland, which were defeated by 
his fortune or his character, a genius that might have en- 
lightened or deluded the world, was buried in a country 
living, unknown to fame, and discontented with mankind.^ 
Est sacrificulus in pcigo, et rusticos decipit. As often as private 
or ecclesiastical business called him to Lausanne, I enjoyed 
the pleasure and benefit of his conversation, and we were 
mutually flattered by our attention to each other. Our 
correspondence, in his absence, chiefly turned on Locke's 
metaphysics, which he attacked, and I defended ; the origin 
of ideas, the principles of evidence, and the doctrine of 
liberty ^ ; 

And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.-' 

By fencing with so skilful a master, I acquired some dexterity 
in the use of my philosophic weapons ; but I was still the 
slave of education and prejudice, he had some measures to 
keep ; and I much suspect that he never showed me the true 
colours of his secret scepticism. 

Before I was recalled from Switzerland, I had the satisfac- 
tion of seeing the most extraordinary man of the age ; a poet, 
an historian, a philosopher, who has filled thirty quartos of 
prose and verse with his various productions, often excellent, 

i["He was in 1773 appointed to the Chair of Greelc and Ethics in the 
Academy of Lausanne. He was Rector of the Academy from 1775 to 1778, 
and died April 3, 1784" (Read's //ist Studies, ii., 135). See ii., p. 141, for 
his letter to Voltaire from Bex, where he says : " By dint of shining for others 
I myself am become extinguished ".] 

2 [Two of AUamand's letters are printed in Gibbon's Afisc. Works, i. , 436- 
455. He ends the second with saying : " II y a longtemps que je soupconne 
un plan form^ de r^duire le systSme g6n6ral a trois grands empires ; celui des 
Franfais a I'occident du Rhin, celui d'Autriche k I'orient, et celui des Russes 
au nord. II n'y en a pourtant rien dans I'Apocalypse. Qu'on partage la 
terra corame on voudra, pourvu qu'il y soit permis de croire, que ce qui est, 
est ; et que les contradictoires ne peuvent pas etre vraies en meme temps." 

Milman {The Decline, ed. 1B54, i. , 53) quotes Dugald Stewart as saying 
{Preface to Encyclop. , ii. , 13) that ' ' these letters may be still read with advantage 
by many logicians of no small note in the learned world ".] 

'^{Paradise Lost, ii., 561.] 



1756-58] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 103 

and always entertaining. Need I add the name of Voltaire ? 
After forfeiting, by his own misconduct, the friendship of the 
first of kings, ^ he retired, at the age of sixty, with a plentiful 
fortune, to a free and beautiful country, and resided two 
winters (1757 and 1758) in the town or neighbourhood of 
Lausanne.^ My desire of beholding Voltaire, whom I then 
rated above his real magnitude,^ was easily gratified. He 
received me with civility as an English youth ; but I cannot 



1 [In 1752 Voltaire wrote a satire on Maupertuis, President of the Academy 
of Berlin, under the title of Diatribe du Docteur Akakia. It is said that he read 
it to Frederick the Great, but promised that it should not be published. 
According to his own account it was printed without his consent in Holland, 
whence it rapidly spread — " 30,000 copies sold in Paris". The King did not 
believe him, and wrote him the following letter : — 

" Votre Efrontrie m'etone, apres ce que vous ven^z de faire et qui est Clair 
Come le jour vous persist^z au lieu de vous avou6r coupable, ne vous 
imagin^z pas que vous fer^z Croire que le Noir est blang, quand on ne Voit pas, 
c'est qu'on ne Veut pas tout Voir, mais si vous poussez L' affaire a bout je ferai 
tout imprim^r, et Lon vera que si Vos ouvrages Meritent qu'on Vous Erige des 
Statues votre Conduite vous meriterait des Chaines. 

" L'editeur est Interog^ il a tout Declare." 

Voltaire replied : — 

' ' Ah mon dieu Sire dans letat ou je suis ! je vous jure encor sur ma vie a la 
quelle je renonce sans peine que cest une calomnie affireuse. je vous conjure de 
faire confronter tous mes gens, quoi vous me jugeriez sans entendre, je demande 
justice, et la mort." From a facsimile of the original of the King's letter and 
of Voltaire's answer written beneath on the same sheet [CEuvres de Voltaire, 
xli. , 12). 

Mr. Carlyle in his Friedrich II. (ed. in ten vols, n.d.), vi., 274, reverses the 
order of the letters, making the King's the answer to Voltaire's. The last 
sentence he translates : " I demand justice or death ". He refers to CEuvres de 
Frddiric, xxii. , 302, i.] 

2 [Voltaire wrote in 1754 : " Ce Lausanne est devenu un singulier pays. II 
est peupl6 d' Anglais et de Franjais philosophes, qui sont venus y chercher de la 
tranquillity et du soleil. On y parle francais, on y pense a I'anglaise. On me 
presse tous les jours d'y aller faire un tour " {CEuvres, xlix. , 109).] 

•*["Aug. 28, 1762. I finished the Siicle de Louis XIV. I believe that 
Voltaire had for this work an advantage which he has seldom enjoyed. When 
he treats of a distant period, he is not a man to turn over musty monkish 
writers to instruct himself He follows some compilation, varnishes it over with 
the magic of his style, and produces a most agreeable, superficial, inaccurate 
performance. But there the information, both written and oral, lay within his 
reach, and he seems to have taken great pains to consult it " {Misc. Works, v. , 
247). 

"He casts a keen and lively glance over the surface of history" {The 
Decline, v. , 419). " In his way Voltaire was a bigot, an intolerable bigot " {ib., 
vii., 139). " The pious zeal of Voltaire is excessive, and even ridiculous " {ib., 
vii., 188). Gibbon had perhaps been slighted by Voltaire. In his Atito., p. 149, 
he speaks of him as ' ' the envious bard ' ' and attacks the acting of ' ' his fat and 
ugly niece".] 



104 EDWAED GIBBON [1756-58 

boast of any peculiar notice or distinction^ Firgilium vidi 
tantimi,^ 

The ode which he composed on his first arrival on the 
banks of the Leman Lake, Maison d'Arisiippe ! Jardin 
d' Epicure,^ etc. had been imparted as a secret to the gentle- 
man by whom I was introduced. He allowed me to read it 
twice ; I knew it by heart ^ ; and as my discretion was not 
equal to my memory, the author was soon displeased by the 
circulation of a copy. In writing this trivial anecdote, 1 
wished to observe whether my memory was impaired, and I 
have the comfort of finding that every line of the poem is 
still engraved in fresh and indelible characters. The highest 
gratification which I derived from Voltaire's residence at 
Lausanne, was the uncomm.on circumstance of hearing a 
great poet declaim his own productions on the stage. He 
had formed a company of gentlemen and ladies, some of 
whom were not destitute of talents. A decent theatre was 
fi'amed at Monrepos, a country-house at the end of a suburb ^ ; 
dresses and scenes were provided at the expense of the actors ; 
and the author directed the rehearsals with the zeal and 
attention of paternal love. In two successive winters his 
tragedies of Zayre, Alzire, Zulime, and his sentimental 
comedy of the Enfant Prodigue, were played' at the theatre 
of Monrepos. Voltaire represented the characters best 
adapted to his years, Lusignan, Alvarez, Benassar, Euphe- 

' i[Ovid, Tristia, iv. , lo, 51. 

Though Voltaire outhved the pubHcation of the first part of The Decline and 
Fall by more than two years, Gibbon's name is nowhere mentioned by him — 
at all events it does not appear in the index of his Works. ] 

'^\_CEuvres de Voltaire, xi. , 174.] 

'''[It contains 122 lines. Dr. Johnson learnt by heart at two readings 
Hawkesworth's Ode on Life, but it contained only sixty-eight lines — lines more- 
over of fewer feet than Voltaire's ode {John. Misc., ii., 167).] 

4 [To form the stage ' ' a communication was opened through the house wall 
and an adjoining hay-loft ; the spectators were within the chateau. During a 
representation of Zaire, when Lusignan said to Chatillon [Act ii., scene 3] : — 

En quels lieux sommes-nous ? aidez mes faibles yeux ! 
a caustic Lausannois cried out :— 

Seigneur, c'est le grenier du maitre de ces lieux." 

(Read's Hist. Studies, ii. , 211.) 

Of Voltaire's house " one of the rooms and a portion of the walls are in- 
cluded in the present mansion" {ib., p. 214).] 



1756-58] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 105 

mon. His declamation was fashioned to the pomp and 
cadence of the old stage ; and he expressed the enthusiasm 
of poetry, rather than the feelings of nature.^ My ardour, 
which soon became conspicuous, seldom failed of procuring 
me a ticket. The habits of pleasure fortified my taste for 
the French theatre, and that taste has perhaps abated my 
idolatry for the gigantic genius of Shakespeare, which is 
inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of an English- 
man. ^ The wit and philosophy of Voltaire, his table and 
theatre, refined, in a visible degree, the manners of Lausanne ; 
and, however addicted to study, I enjoyed my share of the 
amusements of society. After the representation of Monrepos 
I sometimes supped with the actors. I was now familiar in 
some, and acquainted in many houses ; and my evenings were 
generally devoted to cards and conversation, either in private 
parties or numerous assemblies. 

I hesitate, from the apprehension of ridicule, when I 
approach the delicate subject of my early love. By this 
word I do not mean the polite attention, the gallantry, 
without hope or design, which has originated in the spirit 
of chivalry, and is interwoven with the texture of French 
manners. I understand bj'^ this passion the union of desire, 
friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single 
female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which 
seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of 
our being. I need not blush at recollecting the object of my 
choice ; and though my love was disappointed of success, I 
am rather proud that I was once capable of feeling such a 
pure and exalted sentiment. The personal attractions of 



^[Posf,p. 155.] 

2 [Gibbon had Hume and Adam Smith to support him in his taste. Hume 
wrote of John Home's Douglas : " I am persuaded it will be esteemed the best, 
and by French critics the only tragedy of our nation " (Burton's Hume, ii. , 17). 
Adam Smith looked upon Racine's Phtdre as " the finest tragedy, perhaps, that 
is extant in any language" ( Theory of Moral Sentiments , ed. 1801, i. , 255). 

Gibbon had no idolatry for the genius of Corneille. Of his Attila he says 
that "it opens with two ridiculous lines" (The Decline, iii., 422). In Attila's 
death Corneille " describes the irruption of blood in forty bombast lines" {ib., 
P- 474)-] 



106 EDWARD GIBBON [1756-58 

Mademoiselle Susan Curchod were embellished by the virtues 
and talents of the mind. Her fortune was humble, but her 
family was respectable. Her mother, a native of France, had 
preferred her religion to her country. The profession of her 
father did not extinguish the moderation and philosophy of 
his temper, and he lived content with a small salary and 
laborious duty, in the obscure lot of minister of Grassy, in the 
mountains that separate the Pays de Vaud from the county 
of Burgundy. 1 In the solitude of a sequestered village he 
bestowed a liberal, and even learned, education on his only 
daughter. - She surpassed his hopes by her proficiency in the 
sciences and languages ; and in her short visits to some 
relations at Lausanne, the wit, the beauty,^ and erudition of 
Mademoiselle Curchod were the theme of universal applause. 
The report of such a prodigy awakened my curiosity ; I saw 
and loved, I found her learned without pedantry, lively in 
conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners ; and 
the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and 
knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance. She permitted 

^ Extracts from the Journal. — March, 1757. — I wrote some critical observa- 
tions upon Plautus. March 8. — I wrote a long dissertation on some lines of 
Virgil. June. — -I saw Mademoiselle Curchod — Omnia vincit amor, et nos 
cedamus amoi-i. August.— I went to Grassy, and staid t^Vo days. Sept. 15. — 
I went to Geneva. Oct. 15. — I came back to Lausanne, having passed through 
Grassy. Nov. i. — I went to visit M. de Watteville at Loin, and saw Made- 
moiselle Gurchod in my way through Rolle. Nov. 17. — I went to Grassy, and 
staid there six days. Jan. 1758. — In the three first months of this year I read 
Ovid's Metamorphoses, finished the conic sections with M. de Traytorrens, and 
went as far as the infinite series ; I likewise read Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology, 
and wrote my critical observations upon it. Jan. 23. — I saw Alzire acted by the 
society at Monrepos. — Gibbon. 

[The Obse?"vations upon Plmitus are given in Misc. IVorks, iv. , 435 ; two 
Dissertations on Virgil, ib., iv. , 441, 446 (the second of which is mentioned 
ante, p. 93), and the Observations upon Netvton' s Chronology, ib., iii. , 152. The 
quotation, Omnia, etc., is from Virgil's Eclogues, x. , 69. 

" Love conquers all, and we must yield to love." 

(Dryden. ) 
Gibbon mentions De Watteville in a letter to Lord Sheffield about the French 
invasion of Savoy in 1792 : " M. de Watteville, with whom you dined at my 
house last year, refused to accept the command of the Swiss succour of Geneva, 
till it was made his first instruction that he should never, in any case, surrender 
himself prisoner of war " {Corres., ii., 316).] 

'■^[Gibbon in writing to her said: ''Nature endowed you with a beauty 
which would soften a tyrant and inflame an anchorite " (Read's Hist. Studies, 
ii-,334)-] 



1756-58] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 107 

me to make her two or three visits at her father's house. I 
passed some happy days there, in the mountains of Burgundy, 
and her parents honourably encouraged the connection. In 
a cahn retirement the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered 
in her bosom ; she listened to the voice of truth and passion, 
and I might presume to hope that I had made some impres- 
sion on a virtuous heart. At Grassy and Lausanne I indulged 
my dream of felicity : but on my return to England I soon 
discovered that my father would not hear of this strange 
alliance, and that without his consent I was myself destitute 
and helpless. After a painful struggle I yielded to my fate : 
I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son ^ ; my wound was 
insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new 
life. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report of the 
tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself,^ and my love 
subsided in friendship and esteem. The minister of Grassy 
soon afterwards died ; his stipend died with him : his 
daughter retired to Geneva, where, by teaching young ladies, 
she earned a hard subsistence for herself and her mother ; 
but in her lowest distress she maintained a spotless reputa- 

1 [Gibbon's conduct was the reverse of that of the Princess of whom he 
wrote : " Honoria sighed, yielded to the impulse of nature, and threw herself 
into the arms of her chamberlain Eugenius " {The Decline, iii., 456). 

For Mile de Curchod see Appendix 20.] 

2 [It is, I believe, to this passage that Miss Holroyd referred when she wrote : 
" The manner in which he mentions his first love, Mdme Necker, is very flatter- 
ing ; but even there he cannot help introducing a little sarcasm" [Girlhood, 
etc. , p. 274). She added : ' ' She had the satisfaction of going out of the world 
with the knowledge of being his first and only love. Papa sent extracts of the 
passages where he mentioned her and the Severy family to Severy [post, p. 
236, n.'\ ; and she had the pleasure of reading them before her death " [ib., 
p. 288). " There are several love letters of Mme Necker's among Mr. Gibbon's 
papers " [ib., p. 293). 

As she would have willingly married Gibbon, so was she eager for her 
daughter to marry Pitt. She wrote to her in 1783 : " Je d^sirais que tu 
^pousasses M. Pitt. . . . Tu n'as pas voulu me donner cette satisfaction" 
(D'Haussonville's Le Salon de Madajne Necker, ii., 56). In 1790 her daughter 
(then Madame de Stael) wrote at Coppet [post, p. 221) : " Nous poss^dons dans 
ce chateau M. Gibbon, I'ancien amoureux de ma mere, celui qui voulait 
I'^pouser. Quand je le vols, je me demande si je serais nde de son union avec 
ma mere : je me r^ponds que non et qu'il suffisait de mon pere seul pour que je 
vinsse au monde " {ib., ii., 250). On his death she wrote: " Ce pauvre 
Gibbon, dont tu m'as entendu parler comme du seul homme qui put attacher 
^ la Suisse, est mort en Angleterre. . . . On est dtonn6 de voir p6rir autrement 
que par la revolution fran9aise " (ib., p. 282).] 



108 EDWAED GIBBON [1756-58 

tion, and a dignified behaviour. A rich banker of Paris, a 
citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to 
discover and possess this inestimable treasure ; and in the 
capital of taste and luxury she resisted the temptations of 
wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The 
genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicuous 
station in Europe. In every change of prosperity and disgrace 
he has I'eclined on the bosom of a faithful friend ; and Made- 
moiselle Curchod is now the wife of M. Necker, the minister, 
and perhaps the legislator, of the French monarchy.^ 

Whatsoever have been the fruits of my education, they 
must be ascribed to the fortunate banishment which placed 
me at Lausanne. I have sometimes applied to my own fate 
the verses of Pindar, which remind an Olympic champion that 
his victory was the consequence of his exile ; and that at home, 
like a domestic fowl, his days might have rolled away inactive 
or inglorious. 

. . . ijToi Kal Ted Kev, 
'EvSofidxas ar aXeKToop, 
'Xvyy6v(f Trap' Icrria 
'A/cAer;s Ti^h. KaTed)vWop6'riaei/ iroSd}V • 
E( fjLT] (TTatTLs avTiaveipa 
KfCDffias a a/Mepcre irarrpas.^ 

— Olymp. xii. 

1 \_Post, p. 198. On Sept. 3, 1790, Necker " withdrew softly, almost privily. 
. . . Fifteen months ago we saw him coming, with escort of horse, with sound 
of clarion and trumpet ; and now, at Arcis-sur-Aube, while he departs, 
unescorted, soundless, the Populace and Municipals stop him as a fugitive, are 
not unlike massacring him as a traitor ; the National Assembly, consulted on 
the matter, gives him free egress as a nullity" (Carlyle's Fi-ench Revolution, 
ed. 1857, i., 303). 

" I passed four days [in October, 1790] at the castle of Copet with Necker," 
Gibbon wrote, ' ' and could have wished to have shown him as a warning to any 
aspiring youth possessed with the demon of ambition. With all the means of 
private happiness in his power, he is the most miserable of human beings : the 
past, the present, and the future are equally odious to him. When I suggested 
some domestic amusements of books, building, etc. , he answered with a deep 
tone of despair, ' Dans I'etat ou je suis, je ne puis sentir que le coup de vent 
qui m'a abattu ' " (Corres., ii., 236).] 

2 Thus, like the crested bird of Mars, at home 
Engag'd in foul domestic jars. 
And wasted with intestine wars. 
Inglorious hadst thou spent thy vig'rous bloom ; 
Had not sedition's civil broils 
Expell'd thee from thy native Crete, 
And driv'n thee with more glorious toils 
Th' Olympic crown in Pisa's plain to meet. 

(West's P?«a?«n )— Sheffield. 



1758] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 109 

If my childish revolt against the religion of my country 
had not stripped me in time of my academic gown, the five 
important years, so liberally improved in the studies and 
conversation of Lausanne, would have been steeped in port 
and prejudice among the monks of Oxford. Had the fatigue 
of idleness compelled me to read, the path of learning would 
not have been enlightened by a ray of philosophic freedom. 
I should have grown to manhood ignorant of the life and 
language of Europe,! and my knowledge of the world would 
have been confined to an English cloister. But my religious 
error fixed me at Lausanne, in a state of banishment and 
disgrace. The rigid course of discipline and abstinence, to 
which I was condemned, invigorated the constitution of my 
mind and body ; poverty and pride estranged me from my 
countrymen. One mischief, however, and in their eyes a 
serious and irreparable mischief, was derived from the success 
of my Swiss education ; I had ceased to be an Englishman. 
At the flexible period of youth, from the age of sixteen to 
twenty-one, my opinions, habits, and sentiments were cast 
in a foreign raiould ; the faint and distant remembrance of 
England was almost obliterated ; my native language was 
grown less familiar ^ ; and I should have cheerfully accepted 
the offer of a moderate independence on the terms of per- 
petual exile. By the good sense and temper of Pavilliard 
my yolk was insensibly lightened : he left me master of my 
time and actions ; but he could neither change my situation, 
nor increase my allowance, and with the progress of my years 
and reason I impatiently sighed for the moment of my deliver- 
ance. At length, in the spring of the year one thousand 
seven hundred and fifty-eight, my father signified his per- 
mission and his pleasure that I should immediately return 
home. We were then in the midst of a war : the resentment 
of the French at our taking their ships without a declaration,^ 

1 {^Post, p. 132.] 

2 [From Gallicisms he never wholly " cleared his tongue" — or rather his pen.] 
<* [In the summer of 1755, though war had not been declared between Eng- 
land and France, it was actually carried on in the American settlements. The 
English cruisers began to prey on the French commerce. ' ' Before the end of 



110 EDWAED GIBBON [i758 

had rendered that polite nation somewhat peevish and difficult. 
They denied a passage to English travellers, and the road 
through Germany was circuitous, toilsome, and perhaps in 
the neighbourhood of the armies, exposed to some danger. 
In this perplexity, two Swiss officers of my acquaintance in the 
Dutch service, who were returning to their garrisons, offered 
to conduct me through France as one of their companions ; 
nor did we sufficiently reflect that my borrowed name and 
regimentals might have been considered, in case of a dis- 
covery, in a very serious light. ^ I took my leave of Lausanne 
on the 11th of April, 1758, with a mixture of joy and regret, 
in the firm resolution of revisiting, as a man, the pei'sons and 
places which had been so dear to my youth. 2. We travelled 
slowly, but pleasantly, in a hired coach, over the hills of 
Franche-compte and the fertile province of Lorraine, and 
passed, without accident or inquiry, through several fortified 
towns of the French frontier : from thence we entered the 
wild Ardennes of the Austrian dutchy of Luxemburg ; and 
after crossing the Meuse at Liege, we traversed the heaths of 
Brabant, and reached, on the fifteenth day, our Dutch garrison 
of Bois le Due. In our passage through Nancy, my eye was 
gratified by the aspect of a regular and be.autiful city, the 
work of Stanislaus, who, after the storms of Polish royalty, 
reposed in the love and gratitude of his new subjects of 
Lorraine.^ In our halt at Maestri cht I visited Mr. de Beau- 

this year 300 French merchant ships, many of them extremely rich, and 8,000 
of their sailors were brought into English ports." This was done "under the 
motive of self-defence, in order to deprive the French Court of the means of 
making an invasion, with which their Ministers in all the Courts of Europe 
had menaced England". War was formally declared in March, 1756 
(Smollett's England, ed. 1800, iii. , 442, 520-21).] 

1 [He would not have been detected by an English accent. " II faut ajouter 
avec Suard qu'il prononcait avec affectation, et d'un ton de fausset, la langue 
fran9aise, laquelle il parlait d'ailleurs avec une rare correction et comme un 
livre" [Causeries du Lundi, viii. , 439).] 

2 [He was thinking of himself and Lausanne in the following passage: 
"Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that tender regard which seldom fails 
to arise in a liberal mind, from the recollection of the place where it has 
discovered and exercised its growing powers " ( The Decline, ii., 255).] 

"* [Stanislaus Leszczynski, the Palatine of Posen, supported by Charles XII. 
of Sweden, was elected King of Poland in 1704. He abdicated the throne in 
1709, and in. the end retired to France. In 1725 his daughter married 



1758] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 111 

fort, a learned critic, who was known to me by his specious 
arguments against the five first centuries of the Roman His- 
tory.^ After dropping my regimental companions, I stepped 
aside to visit Rotterdam and the Hague. I wished to have 
observed a country, the monument of fi'eedom and industry ; 
but my days were numbered, and a longer delay would have 
been ungraceful. I hastened to embark at the Brill, landed 
the next day at Harwich,^ and proceeded to London, where 
my father awaited my arrival. The whole term of my first 
absence from England was four years ten months and fifteen 
days. 

In the prayers of the church our personal concerns are 
judiciously reduced to the threefold distinction of mind, body, 
and estate.'^ The sentiments of the mind excite and exercise 
our social sympathy. The review of my moral and literary 
character is the most interesting to myself and to the public ; 
and I may expatiate, without reproach, on my private studies ; 
since they have produced the public writings, which can alone 
entitle me to the esteem and friendship of my readers. The 

Lewis XV. In 1733 he was a second time proclaimed king, and in 1735 by the 
Treaty of Vienna he made a second and a final abdication. " He was to enjoy 
possession of the duchies of Lorraine and Bar, which after his death were to be 
permanently united to France. In 1737 he was formally put in possession of 
his new territories. He died in 1766 at the age of eighty-nine" (Poland, by 
W. R. Morfill, ed. 1893, pp. 199-208). 

Condorcet in his P^ie de Voltaire thus writes of Stanislaus : " Retire en ■■ 
Lorraine, ah. il n'avait encore que le nom de souverain, il r^parait par ses 
bienfaits le mal que I'administration franpaise fesait a cette province, 011 le 
gouvernement paternel de Leopold avait r6par^ un si^cle de devastations et 
malheurs. . . . Sa maison ^tait celle d'un particulier tres riche ; son ton, celui 
d'un homme simple et franc qui, n'ayant jamais ^t^ malheureux que parce 
qu'on avait voulu qu'il fut roi, n'^tait pas 6bloui d'un titre dont il n'avait 
6prouv6 que les dangers " [CEuvres de Voltaire, Ixiv. , 58).] 

i[" Notre siecle, qui se croit destine a changer les lois en tout genre, a enfante 
un Pyrrhonisme historique, utile et dangereux. M. de Pouilly, esprit brilliant 
et superficiel, qui citait plus qu'il ne lisait, douta de la certitude des cinq 
premiers siecles de Rome ; mais son imagination peu faite pour ces recherches 
c6da facilement a I'^rudition et a la critique de M. Freret et de I'Abb^ Sallier. 
M. de Beaufort fit revivre cette controverse, et I'histoire Romaine souffrit beau- 
coup des attaques d'un ^crivain qui savait douter et qui savait decider" 
(Gibbon, Misc. Woj-ks, iv. , 40).] 

2[He landed on May 4, 1758 [Auto., p. 241).] 

^["Finally, we commend to thy fatherly goodness all those who are any 
ways afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body or estate" (A Collect or Prayer 
for all Conditions of Men). '\ 



112 EDWARD GIBBON [i758 

experience of the world inculcates a discreet reserve on the 
subject of our person and estate, and we soon learn that 
a free disclosure of our riches or poverty would provoke the 
malice of envy, or encourage the insolence of contempt. 

The only person in England whom I was impatient to see 
was my aunt Porten, the affectionate guardian of my tender 
years. I hastened to her house in College-street, West- 
minster ; and the evening was spent in the eifusions of joy 
and confidence. It was not without some awe and apprehen- 
sion that I approached the presence of my father. My 
infancy, to speak the truth, had been neglected at home ^ ; 
the severity of his look and language at our last parting still 
dwelt on my memory ; nor could I form any notion of his 
character, or my probable reception. They were both more 
agreeable than I could expect. The domestic discipline of 
our ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness 
of the age ^ ; and if my father remembered that he had 
trembled before a stern pai'ent,^ it was only to adopt with his 
own son an opposite mode of behaviour. He received me as 
a man and a friend ; all constraint was banished at our first 
interview, and we ever afterwards continued on the same 
term^s of easy and equal politeness. He applauded the 
success of my education ; every word and action was ex- 
pressive of the most cordial affection ; and our lives would 
have passed without a cloud, if his oeconomy had been equal 
to his fortune, or if his fortune had been equal to his desires. 
During my absence he had married his second wife. Miss 
Dorothea Patton, who was introduced to me with the most 



^ [In dedicating to his father his Essai (post, p. 127) he speaks of "that truly 
paternal care which, from the first dawnings of my reason, has always watched 
over my education, and afforded me every opportunity of improvement " [Misc. 
Works, iv. , 4). See ante, p. 30, for his mother's neglect of him.] 

2[" When Johnson saw some young ladies in Lincolnshire who were remark- 
ably well behaved, owing to their mother's strict discipline and severe correc- 
tion, he exclaimed in one of Shakspeare's lines a little varied, 
"Rod, I will honour thee for this thy duty." 

(Boswell's /(?/?« J0«, i. , 46.)] 

■'[Not only his son, but his daughters feared him. " His children trembled 
in his presence" (Auto., p. 17).] 



1758] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 113 

unfavourable prejudice. I considered his second marriage as 
an act of displeasure, and I was disposed to hate the rival of 
my mother. But the injustice was in my own fancy,^ and the 
imaginary monster was an amiable and deserving woman. I 
could not be mistaken in the first view of her understanding, 
her knowledge, and the elegant spirit of her conversation : 
her polite welcome, and her assiduous care to study and 
gratify my wishes, announced at least that the surface would 
be smooth ; and my suspicions of art and falsehood were 
gradually dispelled by the full discovery of her warm and 
exquisite sensibility.^ After some reserve on my side, our 
minds associated in confidence and friendship ; and as Mrs, 
Gibbon had neither children nor the hopes of children, we 
more easily adopted the tender names and genuine characters 
of mother and of son. By the indulgence of these parents, I 
was left at liberty to consult my taste or reason in the choice 
of place, of company, and of amusements ; and my excursions 
were bounded only by the limits of the island, and the 
measure of my income. Some faint efforts were made to pro- 
cure me the employment of secretary to a foreign embassy ^ ; 
and I listened to a scheme which would again have trans- 
ported me to the continent. Mrs. Gibbon, with seeming 
wisdom, exhorted me to take chambers in the Temple, and 
devote my leisure to the study of the law, I cannot repent 

1 [The previous two lines are a patchwork from paragraphs in different 
Memoirs [Auto. , pp. 158, 242), both of which end with the line of Virgil — " Est 
mihi namque domi pater, est injusta noverca" (Virgil, Eclogues, iii., 33). The 
omission renders the connection not clear. 

To his father he had written from Lausanne on June 4, 1757 : ' ' Assurez 
ma chere mere (c'est avec bien du plaisir que je lui donne ce titre) de tous les 
sentimens que ce nom sacr6 emporte avec lui" (Corres., i. , 12). See also ii>., 
p. 10, for a similar lie.] 

2 [She gave him trouble by her obstinacy, when he was trying " to disentangle 
himself from the management of the farm" at Buriton {posi, p. 187). "She 
refused to yield an iota of her pretensions. . . . She is angry if she is not 
constantly consulted, and yet takes up everything with such absolute quickness 
that we all dread to consult her" {Corres., i. , 164). Though he was a most 
dutiful son, nevertheless, as her life was greatly prolonged, he began to count 
upon her death. Speaking of her by the name of her residence he wrote in 
1789: "The decay of the Belvidere must place me in easy circumstance"; 
and again in 1791 : " As soon as the Belvidere subsides I am rich beyond all 
my plans of expence at Lausanne" (id., ii. , 196, 232). She outlived him.] 

=* [Post, p. 126.] 



114 EDWARD GIBBON [Hbs-Go 

of having neglected her advice. Few men, without the spur 
of necessity, have resolution to force their way, through the 
thorns and thickets of that gloomy labyrinth. Nature had 
not endowed me with the bold and ready eloquence which 
makes itself heard amidst the tumult of the bar ; and I should 
probably have been diverted from the labours of literature, 
without acquiring the fame or fortune of a successful pleader. 
I had no need to call to my aid the regular duties of a pro- 
fession ; every day, every hour, was agreeably filled ; nor have 
I known, like so many of my countrymen, the tediousness of 
an idle life. 

Of the two years (May 1758 — May 1760) between my 
return to England and the embodying of the Hampshire 
militia, I passed about nine months in London, and the 
remainder in the country. The metropolis aifords many 
amusements, which are open to all. It is itself an astonish- 
ing and perpetual spectacle to the curious eye ; and each 
taste, each sense may be gratified by the variety of objects 
which will occur in the long circuit of a morning walk. I 
assiduously frequented the theatres at a very propitious aera 
of the stage, when a constellation of excellent actors, both in 
tragedy and comedy, was eclipsed by the meridian brightness 
of Garrick in the maturity of his judgment, and vigour of his 
performance. 1 The pleasures of a town-life are within the 
reach of every man who is regardless of his health, his money, 
and his company. By the contagion of example I was some- 
times seduced ; but the better habits, which I had formed at 
Lausanne, induced me to seek a more elegant and rational 
society ; and if my search was less easy and successful than I 
might have hoped, I shall at present impute the failure to the 
disadvantages of my situation and character. Had the rank 
and fortune of my parents given them an annual establish- 

1 [In 1754, between Oct. 24 and Nov. 27, in the two theatres of Drury Lane 
and Covent Garden nine plays of Shakespeare were acted in nineteen perform- 
ances, besides thirty-seven other plays by different authors — among them 
Addison, Gibber, Gongreve, Gay, Jonson, Otway, and Rowe (Gent. Mag., 
1754, p. 532). I cannot find any entry for 1759, the space being taken up 
by war news and war lists.] 



1758-60] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 115 

ment in London, their own house would have introduced me 
to a numerous and polite circle of acquaintance. But my 
father's taste had always preferred the highest and the lowest 
company, for which he was equally qualified ^ ; and after a 
twelve years' retirement, he was no longer in the memory of the 
great with whom he had associated. I found myself a stranger 
in the midst of a vast and unknown city ; and at my entrance 
into life I was reduced to some dull family parties, and some 
scattered connections, which were not such as I should have 
chosen for myself The most useful friends of my father were 
the Mallets : they received me with civility and kindness at 
first on his account, and afterwards on ray own ; and (if I may 
use Lord Chesterfield's words) I was soon domesticated ^ in their 
house. Mr. Mallet, a name among the English poets, is 
praised by an unforgiving enemy, for the ease and elegance of 
his conversation, 3 and his wife was not destitute of wit or 
learning.^ By his assistance I was introduced to Lady 
Hervey, the mother of the present Earl of Bristol. Her 
age and infirmities confined her at home ; her dinners were 
select ; in the evening her house was open to the best 
company of both sexes and all nations ; nor was I displeased 
at her preference and even affectation of the manners, the 

1 [ " My father had always delighted in a club of peers or of farmers, for which 
he was equally qualified " {Auto., p. 245 ; see post, p. i85).] 

2 [Perhaps Gibbon refers to Chesterfield's letter to his son, dated March 29, 
1750 (ed. 1774, iii. , 2), where, speaking of a certain house, he says : " Domes- 
ticate yourself there while you stay at Naples ".] 

s[ " His conversation was easy and elegant. The rest of his character may, 
without injury to his memory, sink into silence" (Johnson's IVoris, viii. , 468). 
Johnson, so far as I am aware, was not his personal enemy.] 

* [' ' Mallet's second wife was the daughter of a nobleman's steward, who had 
a considerable fortune, which she took care to retain in her own hands " (id. , 
p. 467). The following entry is in TAe Gent. Mag. for 1742, p. 546 : " Oct. 7, 
1742. David Mallet Esq. Under-Secretary to the Pr. of Wales to Miss Lucy 
Elstob with ;^io,ooo." I have seen the following entry in Mrs. Piozzi's hand- 
writing : " D. Mallet married a Miss Elstob — a famous wit and an infidel ". 

" I never," wrote Lord Charlemont, " saw Hume so much disconcerted as 
by the petulance of Mrs. Mallet. This lady, who was not acquainted with him, 
meeting him at an assembly boldly accosted him in these words : ' Mr. Hume, 
give me leave to introduce myself to you ; we deists ought to know each other '. 
' Madame,' replied he, ' I am no deist. I do not style myself so, neither do 
I desire to be known by that appellation ' " [Life of Charlemo7ii, i. , 235). 

For a curious description of her by Gibbon see Carres., i., 315.] 



116 EDWARD GIBBON [i758-6o 

language, and the literature of France.^ But my progress in 
the English world was in general left to my own efforts, and 
those efforts were languid and slow. I had not been endowed 
by art or nature with those happy gifts of confidence and 
address, which unlock every door and every bosom ; nor 
would it be reasonable to complain of the just consequences 
of my sickly childhood, foreign education, and reserved 
temper. While coaches were rattling through Bond-street, I 
have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging with my 
books. My studies were sometimes interrupted by a sigh, 
which I breathed towards Lausanne ; and on the approach of 
Spring, I withdrew without reluctance from the noisy and 
extensive scene of crowds without company, and dissipation 
without pleasure. In each of the twenty-five years of my 
acquaintance with London (1758 — 1783) the prospect grad- 
ually brightened ; and this unfavourable picture most prpperly 
belongs to the first period after my return from Switzerland. 

My father's residence in Hampshire, where I have passed 
many light, and some heavy hours, was at Buriton, near 
Petersfield, one mile from the Portsmouth road, and at the 
easy distance of fifty-eight miles from London. ^ An old 
mansion, in a state of decay, had been converted into the 
fashion and convenience of a modern house : and if strangers 

i[Lady Hervey was "Molly Lepell ". Gay, in his Mr. Pope's Welcome 
from Greece, had described her as : — 

" Youth's youngest daughter, sweet Lepell." 

(Warton's Papers Works, ed. 1822, ii. , 354.) 
Pope, in his Answer to the Following Question of Mrs, How : What is 
Priidery f had written : — 

" 'Tis an ugly envious Shrew, 
That rails at dear Lepell and You " 

[ib., ii., 314). 
Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son in 1750 : " Lady Hervey, to my great joy, 
because to your great advantage, passes all this winter at Paris. She has been 
bred all her life at Courts, of which she has acquired all the easy good-breeding 
and pohteness, without the frivolousness. She has all the reading that a 
woman should have, and more than any woman need have ; for she under- 
stands Latin perfectly well, though she wisely conceals it " (Chesterfield's 
Letters, iii. , 54).] 

2 The estate and manor of Beriton, otherwise Buriton, were considerable, 
and were sold a few years ago to Lord Stawell.— Sheffield. [They were sold 
in 1789 for ;^i6,ooo [Corres., ii. , 189 ; see ante, p. 37).] 



1758-60] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 117 

had nothing to see, the inhabitants had little to desire. The 
spot was not happily chosen, at the end of the village and the 
bottom of the hill : but the aspect of the adjacent grounds 
was various and cheerful ; the downs commanded a noble 
prospect, and the long hanging woods in sight of the house 
could not perhaps have been improved by art or expence. 
My father kept in his own hands the whole of the estate, and 
even rented some additional land ; and whatsoever might be 
the balance of profit and loss, the farm supplied him with 
amusement and plenty. The produce maintained a number 
of men and horses, which were multiplied by the intermixture 
of domestic and rural servants ; and in the intervals of labour 
the favourite team, a handsome set of bays or greys, was 
harnessed to the coach. The oeconomy of the house was 
regulated by the taste and prudence of Mrs. Gibbon. She 
prided herself in the elegance of her occasional dinners ; and 
from the uncleanly avarice of Madame Pavilliard, I was sud- 
denly transported to the daily neatness and luxury of an 
English table. Our immediate neighbourhood was rare and 
rustic ; but from the verge of our hills, as far as Chichester 
and Goodwood, the western district of Sussex was interspersed 
with noble seats and hospitable families, with whom we cul- 
tivated a friendly, and might have enjoyed a very frequent, 
intercourse. As my stay at Buriton was always voluntary, I 
was received and dismissed with smiles ; but the comforts of 
my retirement did not depend on the ordinary pleasures of 
the country. My father could never inspire me with his love 
and knowledge of farming. I never handled a gun,^ I seldom 
mounted an horse ; and my philosophic walks were soon 
terminated by a shady bench, where I was long detained by 
the sedentary amusement of reading or meditation.^ At 

1 [" It is the peculiar praise of the Roman jurisprudence that it asserts the 
claim of the first occupant to the wild animals of the earth, the air and the 
waters" [The Decline, iv. , 485).] 

2 [Sainte-Beuve, after quoting this passage, continues : " Le sentiment de la 
nature champetre n'est pas (Stranger k. Gibbon ; il y a dans ses Mimoires deux 
ou trois endroits qui pretent a la reverie : le passage que je viens de citer, par 
exemple, toute cette page qui nous rend un joli tableau dela vieanglaise, pos^e, 



118 EDWARD GIBBON [i758-6o 

home I occupied a pleasant and spacious apartment ; the 
library on the same floor was soon considered as my particular 
domain ; and I might say with truth, that I was never less 
alone than when by myself.^ My sole complaint, which I 
piously suppressed, arose from the kind restraint imposed on 
the freedom of my time. By the habit of early rising I always 
secured a sacred portion of the day, and many scattered 
moments were stolen and employed by my studious industry. 
But the family hours of breakfast, of dinner, of tea, and of 
supper, were regular and long : after breakfast Mrs. Gibbon 
expected my company in her dressing-room ; after tea my 
father claimed my conversation and the perusal of the news- 
papers ; and in the midst of an interesting work I was often 
called down to receive the visit of some idle neighbours. ^ 
Their dinners and visits required, in due season, a similar 
return ; and I dreaded the period of the full moon, which was 
usually reserved for our more distant excursions. I could not 
refuse attending my father, in the summer of 1759, to the 
races at Stockbridge, Reading, and Odiam, where he had 
entered a horse for the hunter's plate ; and I was not dis- 
pleased with the sight of our Olympic games, the beauty of 

r^gMe, studieuse ". Sainte-Beuve goes on to refer to the fine passage where the 
historian laid down his pen as he finished the last lines of his History {post, p. 
225), and continues : "Mais, dans tons ces passages, c'est encore le studieux 
chez Gibbon qui goiite la nature" {Causeries, viii., 443).] 

1 [" P. Scipionem, Marce fih, eum qui primus Africanus appellatus est, dicere 
solitum scripsit Cato, qui fuit ejus fere sequalis, nunquam se minus otiosum esse 
quam quum otiosus, nee minus solum quam quum solus esset " (Cicero, De 
Officiis, iii. , i). 

' ' It was accounted the peculiar of philosophers and wise men to be able to 
hold themselves in talk. And it was their boast on this account, ' That they 
were never less alone than when by themselves ' " (Shaftesbury's Characteristicks, 
ed. 1714, i. , 170).] 

"- [Grote suffered in the same way. At the age of twenty-two he recorded : 
' ' My studies have not lately been so regular as they might have been. ... A 
numerous family [his father's] and the present artificial state of society absolutely 
imprison me to such an extent that I can enjoy but very little solitude. And it 
is dull and wretched to the last degree to a mind which has a glimpse of a nobler 
sphere of action, to witness the total exclusion of intellect which disgraces 
general conversation" {Life of Grote, ed. 1873, p. 13). A year later he wrote : 
" I regretted this continual waste of evenings beyond measure, and longed for 
the time when my house and my hours should be under my command" {ib., 
p. 20).] 



1758-60] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 119 

the spot, the fleetness of the horses, and the gay tumult of the 
numerous spectators. As soon as the militia business was 
agitated many days were tediously consumed in meetings of 
deputy-lieutenants at Petersfield, Alton, and Winchester. ^ In 
the close of the same year, 1759, Sir Simeon (then Mr.) 
Stewart attempted an unsuccessful contest for the county of 
Southampton, against Mr. Legge, Chancellor of the Exchequer : 
a well-known contest, in which Lord Bute's influence was first 
exerted and censured. ^ Our canvas at Portsmouth and Gosport 
lasted several days ; but the interruption of my studies was 
compensated in some degree by the spectacle of English 
manners, and the acquisition of some practical knowledge. 

If in a more domestic or more dissipated scene my application 
was somewhat relaxed, the love of knowledge was inflamed 
and gratified by the command of books ; and I compared the 
poverty of Lausanne with the plenty of London. My father's 
study at Buriton was stuffed with much trash of the last 



^ [Posf, p. 134. Blackstone, writing of the Militia Act of 1757, says : " The 
general scheme is to discipline a certain number of the inhabitants of every 
county, chosen by lot for three years, and officered by the Lord Lieutenant, the 
Deputy Lieutenants, and other principal landholders, under a commission from 
the Crown " (Commenfaries, ed. 1775, i. , 412). 

Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son on Sept. 23, 1757 : " You may remember 
I said at first, that the popularity would soon be on the side of those who 
opposed the popular Militia Bill ; and now it appears so with a vengeance in 
almost every county of England, by the tumults and insurrections of the people, 
who swear that they will not be inlisted " {Letters to his Son, iv. , 95). In the 
East Riding of Yorkshire " farmers and country people, out of forty townships, 
armed with guns, scythes and clubs, rose on account of the Act " [Gent. Mag., 
1757, p. 431). Two of these rioters were hanged, and four transported for life 
[ib., 1758, p. 239). In the same Magazine, July, 1759, p. 341, it is stated that, 
under the threat of a French invasion, "the militia that have been raised 
and disciplined have been marched to the places of greatest danger".] 

2 [It was a bye-election. Legge, who as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had 
provided the funds for Pitt's armaments, resigned his seat for Oxford, so as to 
stand. Horace Walpole describes this election as "an incident that led to a 
discovery of some of the secret politics of the Heir-apparent's Court " [Memoirs 
of George II. , ii. , 399). Burke describes the growth of influence under Bute in 
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (Burke's Select Works, ed. E. 
J. Payne, i. , 10). The Gibbons, as Tories, supported Stewart. 

Gray, on April 22, 1760, described a duel between Stewart and the Duke of 
Bolton : " They met near Mary-le-bone, and the D. , in making a pass, over- 
reached himself, fell down and hurt his knee ; the other bid him get up, but he 
could not ; then he bid him ask his life, but he would not ; so he let him alone, 
and that's all. Mr. Stewart was slightly wounded " (Mitford's Gray's Works, 
iii,, 238). The Duke was Lord Lieutenant of the county [post, p, 136),] 



120 EDWAED GIBBON [i758-6o 

age, with much high church divinity and politics, which have 
long since gone to their proper place ^ : yet it contained some 
valuable editions of the classics and the fathers, the choice, 
as it should seem, of Mr. Law ; and many English publica- 
tions of the times had been occasionally added. From this 
slender beginning I have gradually formed a numerous and 
select library, the foundation of my works, and the best 
comfort of my life, both at home and abroad. On the receipt 
of the first quarter, a large share of my allowance was ap- 
propriated to my literary wants. I cannot forget the joy with 
which I exchanged a bank-note of twenty pounds for the 
twenty volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions ; 
nor would it have been easy, by any other expenditure of 
the same sum, to have procured so large and lasting a fund 
of rational amusement. At a time when I most assiduously 
frequented this school of ancient literature, I thus expressed 
my opinion of a learned and various collection, which since 
the year 1759 has been doubled in magnitude, though not 
in merit. 2 " Une de ces societes, qui ont mieux immortalise 
Louis XIV. qu'une ambition souvent pernicieuse aux hommes, 
commen^ait d^ja ces recherches qui reunissent la justesse de 
I'esprit, I'amenite et I'erudition : ou Ton voit tant de decou- 
vertes, et quelquefois, ce qui ne cede qu'a peine aux decou- 
vertes, une ignorance modeste et savante." ^ The review of 
my libi'ary must be reserved for the period of its maturity ; 
but in this place I may allow myself to observe, that I am 
not conscious of having ever bought a book from a motive 



1 [Gibbon, describing the pillage of the libraries of Constantinople by the 
Turks, says : " Ten volumes might be purchased for a single ducat ; and the 
same ignominious price, too high perhaps for a shelf of theology, included the 
whole works of Aristotle and Homer, the noblest productions of the science and 
literature of ancient Greece" {The Decline, vii. , 198).] 

2 [Gibbon quotes from his Essai sur V Etude de la Littirattire {Misc. Works, 
iv., 19).] 

3 [" Cette Acad^mie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres est proprement la patrie 
intellectuelle de Gibbon ; il y habite en id6e, il en etudie les travaux originaux 
ou solides rendus avec justesse et parfois avec agr^ment ; il en appr^cie les 
d^couvertes, ' et surtout ce qui ne cede qu'a peine aux d^couvertes, dit-il en 
veritable Attique, une ignorance viodeste et savante ' " {Causeries du Lundi, viii. , 
444)0 



1758-60] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 121 

of ostentation, that every volume, before it was deposited on 
the shelf, was either read or sufficiently examined, and that 
I soon adopted the tolerating maxim of the elder Pliny, 
" nullum esse librum tam malum ut non ex aliqua parte 
prodesset ".^ I could not yet find leisure or courage to renew 
the pursuit of the Greek language, excepting by reading the 
lessons of the Old and New Testament every Sunday, when 
I attended the family to church. ^ The series of my Latin 
authors was less strenuously completed ; but the acquisition, 
by inheritance or purchase, of the best editions of Cicero, 
Quintilian, Livy, Tacitus, Ovid, etc., afforded a fair prospect, 
which I seldom neglected. I persevered in the useful method 
of abstracts and observations ; and a single example may 
suffice, of a note which had almost swelled into a work. The 
solution of a passage of Livy (xxxviii., 38), involved me in 
the dry and dark treatises of Greaves, Arbuthnot, Hooper, 
Bernard, Eisenschmidt, Gi'onovius, La Barre, Freret, etc.^ ; and 
in my French essay (chap. 20), I ridiculously send the reader 
to my own manuscript remarks on the weights, coins, and 
measures of the ancients,^ which were abruptly terminated 
by the militia drum. 

As I am now entering on a more ample field of society and 
study, I can only hope to avoid a vain and prolix garrulity, 
by overlooking the vulgar crowd of my acquaintance, and 
confining myself to such intimate friends among books and 
men, as are best entitled to my notice by their own merit 
and reputation, or by the deep impression which they have 

1 [The younger Pliny wrote of his uncle : ' ' Nihil enim legit quod non excer- 
peret ; dicere etiam solebat nullum esse librum tam malum, ut non aliqua parte 
prodesset " [Epist., iii. , 5, 10).] 

2 [They commonly went twice to church every Sunday. This reading, with 
the study that it led to at home, began, or, at all events, increased, his doubts. 
Towards the end of 1759 he read Grotius's De Veritate Religionis Christianm, 
and his scepticism was only the more confirmed (^w^., p. 249). 

Grotius was one of the three writers whom Johnson said he ' ' would recom- 
mend to every man whose faith is yet unsettled" (Boswell's /o/z/zjow, i. , 398. 
See also ib., i. , 454).] 

^ [This passage of Livy Gibbon refers to in his Principes des Poids, des 
Monnaies, etc. {Misc. Works, v. 73). At the beginning of the same essay he 
gives a brief account of most of these writers (i3. , p. 67).] 

* [" V. mes Rem. MSS. sur les poids, etc., des anciens " (id., iv. , 34).] 



122 EDWARD GIBBON [i758-6o 

left on my mind. Yet I will embrace this occasion of re- 
commending to the young student a practice^ which about 
this time I myself adopted. After glancing my eye over the 
design and order of a new book, I suspended the perusal till 
I had finished the task of self-examination, till I had revolved, 
in a solitary walk, all that I knew or believed, or had thought 
on the subject of the whole work, or of some particular 
chapter : I was then qualified to discern how much the 
author added to my original stock ; and if I was sometimes 
satisfied by the agreement, I was soinetimes armed by the 
opposition of our ideas. The favourite companions of my 
leisure were our English writers since the Revolution : they 
breathe the spirit of reason and liberty ; and they most 
seasonably contributed to restore the purity of my own 
language, which had been corrupted by the long use of a 
foreign idiom. By the judicious advice of Mr. Mallet, I was 
directed to the writings of Swift and Addison ; wit and sim- 
plicity are their common attributes : but the style of Swift 
is supported by manly original vigour ; that of Addison is 
adorned by the female graces of elegance and mildness. The 
old reproach, that no British altars had been raised to the 
muse of history,! -^^s recently disproved by the first perfor- 
mances of Robertson and Hume, the histories of Scotland 
and of the Stuarts. I will assume the presumption of saying, 
that I was not unworthy to read them : nor will I disguise 
my different feelings in the repeated perusals. The perfect 
composition, the nervous language, the well-turned periods 
of Dr. Robertson, inflamed me to the ambitious hope that 
I might one day tread in his footsteps : the calm philosophy, 
the careless, inimitable beauties of his friend and rival, often 
forced me to close the volume with a mixed sensation of 
delight and despair.^ 

The design of my first work, the Essay on the Study of 
Literature, was suggested by a refinement of vanity, the desire 
of justifying and praising the object of a favourite pursuit. 

1 [See Appendix 21.] 2 [/^,^ 22. Post, 195.] 



1758-60] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 123 

In France, to which my ideas were confined, the learning and 
language of Greece and Rome were neglected by a philosophic 
age. The guardian of those studies, the Academy of Inscrip- 
tions, was degraded to the lowest rank among the three royal 
societies of Paris : the new appellation of Erudits was con- 
temptuously applied to the successors of Lipsius and Casaubon,i 
and I was provoked to hear (see M. d'Alembert, Discours 
preliminaire a l' Encyclopedie) that the exercise of the memory, 
their sole merit, had been superseded by the nobler faculties 
of the imagination and the judgment. ^ I was ambitious of 
proving by my own example, as well as by my precepts, that 
all the faculties of the mind may be exercised and displayed 
by the study of ancient literature : I began to select and 
adorn the various proofs and illustrations which had oifered 
themselves in reading the classics ; and the first pages or 
chapters of my essay were composed before my departure 
from Lausanne. The hurry of the journey, and of the first 
weeks of my English life, suspended all thoughts of serious 
application : but my object was ever before my eyes ; and no 
more than ten days, from the first to the eleventh of July, 
were suffered to elapse after my summer establishment at 
Buriton. My essay was finished in about six weeks ; and as 
soon as a fair copy had been transcribed by one of the French 
prisoners at Petersfield,^ I looked round for a critic and judge 
of my first performance. A writer can seldom be content 

1 [Gibbon says in his Essay : " Nos beaux-esprits ont senti quels avantages 
leur reviendraient de I'ignorance de leurs lecteurs. lis ont combM de m^pris 
les anciens, et ceux qui les 6tudient encore. On a 6t6 k cette dtude le nom de 
Belles-Lettres, qu'une longue prescription semblait lui avoir consacr^, pour y 
substituer celui d' Erudition. Nos litterateurs sont devenus des Erudits " (Misc. 
Works, iv. , 2o).] 

^ [" La division g^n^rale de nos connaissances, suivant nos trois facultes, a cet 
avantage, qu'elle pourrait fournir aussi les trois divisions du monde litt^raire, 
en irudits, philosophes et beaux-esprits. . . . La m^moire est le talent des 
premiers, la sagacity appartient aux seconds, et les derniers ont I'agr^ment en 
partage," etc. (CEuvres de D'Alembert, ed. 1805, i. , 242). 

Voltaire writes in his Slide de Louis ^//^(chap. xxxiv.) : " II n'y a pas un 
ancien philosophe qui serve aujourd'hui [1740] a I'instruction de la jeunesse 
chez les nations ^clair^es. . . ." {GZuvres, xviii. , 276).] 

■'[At the end of the following year (1759) a large subscription was raised for 
cloathing the French prisoners, "who were perishing with cold" (Boswell's 
Johnson, i., 353, «.).] 



124 EDWARD GIBBON [i758-6o 

with the doubtful recompence of solitary approbation ^ ; but a 
youth ignorant of the world, and of himself, must desire to 
weigh his talents in some scales less partial than his own : 
my conduct was natural, my motive laudable, my choice of 
Dr. Maty judicious and fortunate. By descent and education 
Dr. Maty, though born in Holland, might be considered as a 
Frenchman ; but he was fixed in London by the practice of 
physic, and an office in the British Museum. ^ His reputation 
was justly founded on the eighteen volumes of the Journal 
Briiannique, which he had supported, almost alone, with per- 
severance and success. This humble though useful labour, 
which had once been dignified by the genius of Bayle and the 
leai'ning of Le Clerc,^ was not disgraced by the taste, the 
knowledge, and the judgment of Maty: he exhibits a candid 
and pleasing view of the state of literature in England during 
a period of six years (January, 1750 — December, 1755)*; 
and, far different from his angry son,^ he handles the rod of 
criticism with the tenderness and reluctance of a parent. 

i["The author himself is the best judge of his own performance" (Post, 
p. 191).] 

2 [In T/ie Ge7it. Mag. for July, 1756, p. 362, is a list of the staff of the 
British Museum — one Principal Keeper, three Librarians, of whom Maty was 
second, and three Assistants. How much science preponderated in the founda- 
tion is shown by the Keeper and the first two Librarians being Doctors of 
Medicine. In the Magazine for Dec. , 1758, p. 629, are given the rules for ad- 
mission, under which visitors long suffered. ] 

•^ [Bayle in 1684 began his Nouvelles de la Rdpublique des Lettres, and Le 
Clerc in 1686 his Bibliotheque Universelle et Historique.'\ 

■* [It was a monthly publication in i2mo, published at the Hague. Each 
volume contained four numbers. Johnson, in 1755, having finished his 
Dictionary, was thinking of undertaking a Review. "Dr. Adams suggested, 
that as Dr. Maty had just then finished his BibliotMque Britannique, which 
was a well-executed work, giving foreigners an account of British publications, 
he might, with great advantage, assume him as an assistant. ' He (said 
Johnson), the little black dog! I'd throw him into the Thames'" (Boswell's 
Johnso?i, i. , 284).] 

'^[Paul Henry Maty, editor of The New Review. Cowper wrote of him in 
1786 : " I have authentic intelligence of his being a critical character in all its 
forms, acute, sour, and blunt ; and so incorruptible withal, and so unsusceptible 
of bias from undue motives, that, as my correspondent informs me, he would not 
praise his own mother, did he not think she deserved it" (Southey's Cozvper, v., 
245). Maty reviewed the specimen of the poet's Homer. "His animad- 
versions," Cowper wrote, "in part appeared to me unjust, and in part ill- 
natured ; and yet the man himself being an oracle in everybody's account, I 
apprehended that he had done me much mischief" (ib., p. 309).] 



1758-60] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 125 

The author of the Journal Britannique sometimes aspires to the 
character of a poet and philosopher : his style is pure and 
elegant ; and in his virtues, or even in his defects, he may be 
ranked as one of the last disciples of the school of Fontenelle.^ 
His answer to my first letter was prompt and polite : after a 
careful examination he returned my manuscript, with some 
animadversion and much applause ; and when I visited 
London in the ensuing winter^ we discussed the design and ex- 
ecution in several free and familiar conversations. In a short 
excursion to Buriton I reviewed my essay, according to his 
friendly advice ; and after suppressing a thirds adding a third, 
and altering a third, I consummated my first labour by a short 
preface, which is dated February 3, 1759-^ Yet I still shrunk 
from the press with the terrors of virgin modesty : the manu- 
script was safely deposited in my desk ; and as my attention 
was engaged by new objects, the delay might have been pro- 
longed till I had fulfilled the precept of Horace, " nonumque 
prematur in annum " ? Father Sirmond, a learned Jesuit, 
was still more rigid, since he advised a young friend to expect 
the mature age of fifty, before he gave himself or his writings 
to the public (Olivet, Histoire de 1' Academic Francaise, tom. 
ii. p. 143). The counsel was singular; but it is still more 
singular that it should have been approved by the example 
of the author. Sirmond was himself fifty-five years of age 

1 [Grimm, recording Fontenelle's death on Feb. ii, 1757, has left an 
interesting criticism of him and his school. He attributes to him ' ' le m6rite 
r^el d'avoir rendu le premier la philosophie populaire en France. ... II est 
vrai que M. de Fontenelle, en nous ^clairant ainsi, a pens6 porter un coup 
funeste au gout de la nation. Son style, son coloris et sa mani^re d'^crire 
offrent une vaste carriere au faux bel esprit. . . . Pour juger de la grandeur 
du peril que nous avons couru, pour sentir combien cette maniere qu'on voulait 
6tablir 6tait di^testable, on n'a qua lire les copistes de M. de Fontenelle ; rien 
n'est plus d^plaisant, ni plus insupportable que les ouvrages dont ils ont 
accabfe le public. . . . Ce grand homme [Voltaire] est venu k point nomm^ 
pour arrSter les progrte du faux bel esprit" {Mimoires Historiques, etc., ed. 
1814, i., 334-5).] 

2 [On Dec. 30, 1758, he wrote: "At last Maty and I have downright 
quarrelled. He behaved so very contemptuously to me" (Corres., i. , 21). 
They must have been reconciled later on. ] 

^[De Arie Poetica, 1. 388. 

" Keep your piece nine years." 

(Pope, Prol. Sat, 1. 40.)] 



126 EDWAED GIBBON [mo-62 

when he published (in l6l4) his first work, an edition of 
Sidonius Apollinaris^ with many valuable annotations : (see 
his life, before the great edition of his works in five volumes 
folio, Paris, 1696, e Typographia Regia).i 

Two years elapsed in silence : but in the spring of 1 76l I 
yielded to the authority of a parent, and complied, like a 
pious son, with the wish of my own heart. '^ My private 
resolves were influenced by the state of Europe. About this 
time the belligerent powers had made and accepted overtures 
of peace ; our English plenipotentiaries were named to assist 
at the Congress of Augsburg, which never met ^ ; I wished to 
attend them as a gentleman or a secretary ; and my father 
fondly believed that the proof of some literary talents might 
introduce me to public notice, and second the recommenda- 
tions of my friends. After a last revisal I consulted with 
Mr. Mallet and Dr. Maty, who approved the design and 
promoted the execution. Mr. Mallet, after hearing me read 
my manuscript, received it from my hands, and delivered it 
into those of Becket, with whom he made an agreement in 
my name ; an easy agreement : I required only a certain 
number of copies ^ ; and, without transferring my property, I 

;— i[" Sirmond {Jacques), jdsuite, n6 vers I'an 1559. L'un des plus savans et 
des plus aimables homines de son temps. . . . Ses nombreux ouvrages furent 
trfes estimfe, et sont tr^s peu lus. Mort en 1651" (CEuvres de Voltaire, xvii., 
168). 

Pattison says of the works of the Jesuits : " ' Learned ' they are entitled to 
be called by courtesy, for the works of Schott, Sirmond, and Petavius, have 
all the attributes of learning but one — one, to want which leaves all learning but 
a tinkling cymbal — that is, the love of truth. The Jesuit scholars introduced 
into philological research the temper of unveracity which had been from of old 
the literary habit of their Church. An interested motive lurks beneath each 
word; the motive of Church patriotism " [Life of Casaubon, ed. 1892, p. 462).] 

2 [In an interleaved copy Gibbon wrote : ' ' Mon p^re voulut me le faire 
publier I'hiver passd. Ma jeunesse, et un fonds d'orgueil, qui me rend beaucoup 
plus sensible aux critiques qu'aux 61oges, m'empecherent de goiiter son projet. 
Mais me trouvant i la campagne avec lui au mois de Mars, il renouvella ses 
instances d'une maniere si vive que je ne pus m'en d6fendre" {Misc. Works, 
iv. , I ; se&post, p. 242).] 

^[" March 7, 1761. We are in the utmost hopes of a peace ; a Congress is 
agreed upon at Augsbourg. 

"Aug. 17, 1761. In the meantime, adieu peace! France has refused to 
submit to our terms. They own themselves undone, but depend on the con- 
tinuation of the war for revenging them — not by arms, but by exhausting us " 
(Walpole's Letters, iii., 381, 428).] 

*[He received forty (Misc. Works, iv., i).] 



1760-62] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 127 

devolved on the bookseller the charges and profits of the 
edition. Dr. Maty undertook, in my absence, to correct the 
sheets : he inserted, without my knowledge, an elegant and 
flattering epistle to the author ; which is composed, however, 
with so much art, that, in case of a defeat, his favourable 
report might have been ascribed to the indulgence of a friend 
for the rash attempt of a young English gentleman. The work 
was printed and published, under the title of Essai sur F Etude 
de la Litterature, k Londres, chez T. Becket et P. A. de 
Hondt, 1761, in a small volume in duodecimo : my dedication 
to my father, a proper and pious address, was composed the 
twenty-eighth of May: Dr. Maty's letter is dated the l6th 
of June ; and I received the first copy (June 23) at Alresford, 
two days before I marched with the Hampshire militia. 
Some weeks afterwards, on the same ground, I presented my 
book to the late Duke of York,^ who breakfasted in Colonel 
Pitt's tent. By my father's direction, and Mallet's advice, 
my literary gifts were distributed to several eminent characters 
in England and France ; two books were sent to the Count 
de Caylus,2 and the Duchesse d'Aiguillon,^ at Paris : I had 

1 [The following is from a letter written by a lady in January, 1789 : " Here's 
two anecdotes of the wise Duke of Cumberland [the brother of George III.] ; 
one came from Sir Joshua Reynolds himself. The Duchess was sitting for her 
picture ; the Duke came in, tumbled about the room in his awkward manner, 
without speaking to Sir Joshua. The Duchess thought it too bad, and 
whispered to him her opinion ; upon which he came, and leaning on Sir 
Joshua's chair while he was painting, said, ' What 1 you always begin with the 
head first, do you ? ' And once, when at his own public day he was told he 
ought to say something to Mr. Gibbon, 'So,' says he, 'I suppose you are at 
the old trade again — scribble, scribble, scribble' " (Auckland Corres., ii., 281). 

H. D. Best in his Memorials, p. 68, makes the Duke of Gloucester the hero 
of the story. When Gibbon brought him the second volume of the Decline a?id 
Fall, " he received him with much good nature and affability, saying to him, as 
he laid the quarto on the table, ' Another d— d thick, square book ! Always 
scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?'" 

Horace Walpole, writing in 1760 {Letters, iii., 347), says that " the Duke of 
York was, as he always is, extremely good-humoured," so that Gibbon's book 
was, no doubt, kindly received.] 

2 [Voltaire (CEuvres, x., 195) describes Caylus as "c^l^bre par son goM pour 
les arts. ... II grave lui-meme, et met une expression singuliere dans ses 
dessins." Gibbon read his Dissertations upon Ancient Painting, etc. (Misc. 

Works, iii., 79 ; v., 214). See post, Appendix 28.] 

3 [' ' Cette dame, surnomm6e la sasur du pot par les philosophes k qui elle 
donnait k diner, et de qui elle aimait a etre entour^e, ^tait remplie d'esprit, de 
grace, de beauts " {CEuvres de Voltaire, Ixiii., 57).] 



128 EDWARD GIBBON [i 760-62 

reserved twenty copies for my friends at Lausanne, as the 
first fruits of my education, and a grateful token of my 
remembrance : and on all these persons I levied an un- 
avoidable tax of civility and compliment. It is not surprising 
that a work, of which the style and sentiments were so totally 
foreign, should have been more successful abroad than at 
home. I was delighted by the copious extracts, the warm 
commendations, and the flattering pi'edictions of the Joui*nals 
of France and Holland: and the next year (1762) a new 
edition (I believe at Geneva) extended the fame, or at least 
the circulation of the work. In England it was received with 
cold indifference, little read, and speedily forgotten : a small 
impression was slowly dispersed ; the bookseller murmured, 
and the author (had his feelings been more exquisite) might 
have wept over the blunders and baldness of the English 
translation.^ The publication of my History fifteen years 
afterwards revived the memory of my first performance, and 
the Essay was eagerly sought in the shops. But I refused 
the Permission which Becket solicited of reprinting it : the 
public curiosity was imperfectly satisfied by a pirated copy of 
the booksellers of Dublin ; and when a copy of the original 
edition has been discovered in a sale, the primitive value of 
half-a-crown has risen to the fanciful price of a guinea or 
thirty shillings.^ 

I have expatiated on the petty circumstances and period of 
my first publication, a memorable aera in the life of a student, 
when he ventures to reveal the measure of his mind : his 
hopes and fears are multiplied by the idea of self-importance, 
and he believes for a while that the eyes of mankind are 
fixed on his person and performance. Whatever may be my 
present reputation, it no longer rests on the merit of this 
first essay ; and at the end of twenty-eight years I may 

1 [Gibbon recorded on January ii, 1763, just before leaving England: "I 
went to Becket, paid him his bill (£54), and gave him back his translation. It 
must be printed, though very indifferent. My comfort is that my misfortune is 
not an uncommon one" (Misc. Works, i. , 157).] 

2 [I have lately been offered a copy of the original edition for 18s. 6d., and 
of the translation for 12s.] 



1760-62] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 129 

appreciate ^ my juvenile work with the impartiality, and almost 
with the indifference of a stranger. In his answer to Lady 
Hervey, the Count de Caylus admires, or affects to admire, 
"les livres sans nombre que Mr. Gibbon a lus et tres bien 
lus ".2 But, alas ! my stock of erudition at that time was 
scanty and superficial ; and if I allow myself the liberty of 
naming the Greek masters, my genuine and personal acquaint- 
ance was confined to the Latin classics. The most serious 
defect of my Essay is a kind of obscurity and abruptness 
which always fatigues, and may often elude, the attention of 
the reader. Instead of a precise and proper definition of the 
title itself, the sense of the word Litt&rature is loosely and 
variously applied : a number of remarks and examples, 
historical, critical, philosophical, are heaped on each other 
without method or connection ; and if we except some intro- 
ductory pages, all the remaining chapters might indifferently 
be reversed or transposed. The obscurity of many passages 
is often affected, brevis esse lahoro, ohscurus Jio^ ; the desire of 
expressing perhaps a common idea with sententious and 
oracular brevity : alas ! how fatal has been the imitation of 
Montesquieu ! ^ But this obscurity sometimes proceeds from 
a mixture of light and darkness in the author's mind ; from a 
partial ray which strikes upon an angle, instead of spreading 
itself over the surface of an object. After this fair confession 
I shall presume to say, that the Essay does credit to a young 
writer of two and twenty years of age, who had read with 
taste, who thinks with freedom, and who writes in a foreign 
language with spirit and elegance. The defence of the early 
History of Rome^ and the new Chronology of Sir Isaac 
Newton^ form a specious argument. The patriotic and 

'^ {^Appreciate is not in Johnson's Dictionary.'] "^[Misc. Works, ii., 43.] 

'^{De Arte Poeiica, 1. 25. "I strive to be concise, I prove obscure" 
(Francis).] 

* [Sainte-Beuve says of the Essai : " Le fran9ais est de quelqu'un qui a 
beaucoup lu Montesquieu et qui I'imite ; c'est du fran9ais correct, mais 
artificial" {Causeries, viii. , 446). For Dr. Maty's criticism of the French, see 
post, p. 134.] 

^{Misc. Works, iv., 40.] ^\_Ib., iv. , 49 ; ante, pp. 45, 63.] 



130 EDWAED GIBBON [1760-62 

political design of the Georgics is happily conceived; and 
any probable conjecture, which tends to raise the dignity of 
the poet and the poem, deserves to be adopted, without a 
rigid scrutiny.! Some dawnings of a philosophic spirit 
enlighten the general remarks on the study of history and of 
man.2 I am not displeased with the inquiry into the origin 
and nature of the gods of polytheism,^ which might deserve 
the illustration of a riper judgment. Upon the whole, I may 
apply to the first labour of my pen the speech of a far superior 
artist, when he surveyed the first productions of his pencil. 
After viewing some portraits which he had painted in his 
youth, my friend Sir Joshua Reynolds^ acknowledged to me 
that he was rather humbled than flattered by the comparison 
with his present works ; and that after so much time and 
study, he had conceived his improvement to be much greater 
than he found it to have been. 

At Lausanne I composed the first chapters of my Essay in 
French, the familiar language of my conversation and studies, 
in which it was easier for me to write than in my mother 
tongue. After my return to England I continued the same 
practice, without any affectation, or design of repudiating (as 
Dr. Bentley would say) my vernacular idiom.'^ But I should 

1 [Gibbon, after describing how Augustus distributed farms among his 
soldiers, continues: " Les hardis v6t^rans n'avaient achet6 leurs possessions 
que par une guerre sanglante, et leurs fr^quens actes de violence montraient 
assez qu'ils se croyaient toujours les armes k la main. Qu'y avait-il alors de 
plus assorti k la douce politique d'Auguste, que d'employer les chants har- 
monieux de son ami pour les r^concilier a leur nouvel 6tat?" {Misc. Works, iv. , 
P- 35-)] 

2 [In this part of his Essai Gibbon has the following marginal headings ; 
" L'ESPRIT Philosophique. Pretensions a I'esprit philosophique. Ce qu'il 
n'est pas. Ce qu'il est. Le secours qu'il pent tirer de la litt^rature. L'histoire 
est la science des causes et des effets" {id., iv., 57-63). 

' [On p. 70 of vol. iv. he begins to consider ' ' le paganisme, ce syst^me 
riant mais absurde".] 

■* [" Gibbon, who was now [1779] sitting to Sir Joshua, seems to have taken 
the place formerly filled by Goldsmith, of his companion to places of amuse- 
ment, masquerades, and ridottos " (Leslie and Taylor's Reynolds, ii., 273 ). See 
John. Misc., ii., 237, for an imaginary Dialogue between Dr. Johnson and Mr. 
Gibbon drawn up by Reynolds).] 

5 [" He is defended by the like practice of other writers, who, being Dorians 
born, repudiated their vernacular idiom for that of the Athenians " (Bentley's 
Works, ed. 1836, i., 359). Bentley was reproached by one of his critics for all 



1760-62] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 131 

have escaped some Anti-gallican clamour, had I been content 
with the more natural character of an English author.^ I 
should have been more consistent had I rejected Mallet's 
advice, of prefixing an English dedication to a French book ; 
a confusion of tongues that seemed to accuse the ignorance 
of my patron. The use of a foreign dialect might be excused 
by the hope of being employed as a negociator, by the desire 
of being generally understood on the continent ; but my true 
motive was doubtless the ambition of new and singular fame, 
an Englishman claiming a place among the writers of France. 
The Latin tongue had been consecrated by the service of the 
church ; it was refined by the imitation of the ancients ; and 
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the scholars of Europe 
enjoyed the advantage, which they have gradually resigned, 
of conversing and writing in a common and learned idiom. 
As that idiom was no longer in any country the vulgar speech, 
they all stood on a level with each other ; yet a citizen of 
old Rome might have smiled at the best Latinity of the 
Germans and Britons ; and we may learn from the Ciceronianus 
of Erasmus, how difficult it was found to steer a middle course 
between pedantry and barbarism, ^ The Romans themselves 
had sometimes attempted a more perilous task, of writing 
in a living language, and appealing to the taste and judgment 

three words. " The words in my book which he excepts against are commenti- 
tious, repudiate, concede, aliene, vernacular, timid, negoce, putid and idiom ; 
every one of which were in print before I used them " [ib., preface, p. 54). 

' ' The histories of all our former wars are transmitted to us in our vernacular 
idiom, to use the phrase of a great modern critic" (Addison, The Spectator, 
No. 165).] 

1 [Maty wrote in his Epistle: " Avez-vous pu croire qu'on pardonnerait a 
un homme n6 pour assister aux assembles tumultueuses du senat, et a la 
destruction des renards de sa province, des discussions sur ce qu'on pensa, il y 
a deux mille ans, sur les divinit^s de la Grece, et sur les premiers siecles de 
Rome ? . . . Vos notes sont savantes, mais qui a Newmarket ou dans le caf6 
d' Arthur peut les lire? . . . J'ai gard6 pour le dernier le plus grand de vos 
crimes. Vous etes Anglais, et vous choisissez la langue de vos ennemis. Le 
vieux Caton fr^mit, et dans son Club Antigallican vous d^nonce, le punch a la 
main, un ennemi de la patrie " {Misc. Works, iv. , 7-9).] 

2 [Gibbon sums up an interesting criticism on the Ciceronianus by saying 
that "perhaps the natural conclusion from these various difficulties, where 
either freedom or correctness must be sacrificed, was, that, instead of that 
ungrateful labour upon a dead language, it would be better to improve and 
cultivate the living ones. But this conclusion was too much for the age of 
Erasmus" {Misc. Works, v., 262).] 



132 EDWARD GIBBON [i76o-62 

of the natives. The vanity of Tully was doubly interested in 
the Greek memoirs of his own consulship ; and if he modestly 
supposes that some Latinisms might be detected in his style, 
he is confident of his own skill in the art of Isocrates and 
Aristotle ; and he requests his friend Atticus to disperse the 
copies of his work at Athens, and in the other cities of Greece 
(Ad Atticum, \., 19 ; ii., 1). But it must not be forgotten, that 
from infancy to manhood Cicero and his contemporaries had 
read and declaimed, and composed with equal diligence in 
both languages ; and that he was not allowed to frequent a 
Latin school till he had imbibed the lessons of the Greek 
grammarians and rhetoricians. In modern times, the language 
of France has been diffused by the merit of her writers, the 
social manners of the natives, the influence of the monarchy, 
and the exile of the Protestants.^ Several foreigners have 
seized the opportunity of speaking to Europe in this common 
dialect, and Germany may plead the authority of Leibnitz 
and Frederick, of the first of her philosophers, and the 
greatest of her kings.^ The just pride and laudable prejudice 
of England has restrained this communication of idioms ; and 
of all the nations on this side of the Alps, my countrymen are 
the least practised, and least perfect in the exercise of the 
French tongue. By Sir William Temple ^ and Lord Chester- 

1 [According to Voltaire ((Euvres, xviii. , 320), in the three years that followed 
the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685-88) nearly fifty thousand Protestant 
families left France.] 

2 [Voltaire wrote in 1740 : " La langue franqaise est devenue presque la 
langue universelle " (ib., xlvii. , 479). In his Slide de Louis XIV. published 
in 1752, he says of Leibnitz : " C'^tait peut-etre le savant le plus universel de 
I'Europe. . . . Jamais la correspondance entre les philosophes ne fut plus uni- 
verselle ; Leibnitz servait a I'animer. On a vu une r^publique litt6raire 6tablie 
insensiblement dans I'Europe malgr^ les guerres, et malgr^ les religions dif- 
f^rentes. . . . Les v6ritables savants dans chaque genre ont resserr6 les liens 
de cette grande soci6t6 des esprits r6pandue partout, et partout inddpendante. 
Cette correspondance dure encore, elle est une des consolations des maux que 
Tambition et la politique r^pandent sur la terre " {ib. , xviii., 278). For Gibbon's 
estimate of Leibnitz see Misc. Works, iii. , 361, 386, 568. " He may be com- 
pared," Gibbon writes, " to those heroes whose empire has been lost in the 
ambition of universal conquest " {ib., p. 563). In The Decline (vi. , 444) he calls 
him " the great Leibnitz, a master of the history of the Middle Ages ".] 

■" [Swift, in editing Temple's Letters, writes : " I have made some literal 
amendments, especially in the Latin, French and Spanish " (Temple's Works, 
ed. 1757, i. , 226). Temple went to France at the age of nineteen, and stayed 
there two years \j,b., preface, p. 9).] 



1760-62] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 133 

field it was only used on occasions of civility and business,^ 
and their printed letters will not be quoted as models of 
composition. Lord Bolingbroke may have published in French 
a sketch of his Reflections on Exile "^ ; but his reputation now 
reposes on the address of Voltaire, " Docte sermones utriusque 
lingUEe " ; ^ and by his English dedication to Queen Caroline/ 
and his Essay on Epic Poetn/,^ it should seem that Voltaire 
himself wished to deserve a return of the same compliment. 
The exception of Count Hamilton cannot fairly be urged ; 
though an Irishman by birth, he was educated in France from 
his childhood. Yet I am surprised that a long residence in 
England, and the habits of domestic conversation, did not 
affect the ease and purity of his inimitable style ; and I regret 
the omission of his English verses, which might have afforded 
an amusing object of comparison.^ I might therefore assume 
the piimiis ego in patriam, etc. ; "^ but with what success I have 

1 [Chesterfield sometimes wrote to his son in French as a mode of teaching 
him the language.] 

2 [The Reflections upon Exile, written in France in 1716, are included in 
their English form in Bolingbroke's Works, ed. 1809, i. , 137. I find no mention 
of a French version of this essay.] 

3 [In the Discours sur la Trag^die d Mylord Bolingbroke, prefixed to Brutus 
(1730), Voltaire writes: " Souffrez done queje vous pr&ente Brutus, quoique 
^crit dans une autre langue, docte sei-monis \_sic.'\ utriusque linguce, k vous qui me 
donneriez des le9ons de fran9ais aussi-bien que d'anglais, a vous qui m'appren- 
driez du moins a rendre a ma langue cette force et cette 6nergie qu'inspire la 
noble liberty de penser ; car les sentimens vigoureux de I'ame passent toujours 
dans le langage ; et qui pense fortement, parle de meme " (CEuvres, i. , 309). 

Voltaire applied to Bolingbroke Horace's address to Mascenas, translated 
by Francis : — 

" The Greek and Roman languages are thine" (Odes, iii., 8, 5).] 
* [It was prefixed to the fourth edition of La Henriade, published in London 
in 1728. See CEuvres de Voltaire, viii., 14, where 1726 is given as the date of 
publication, a year before Caroline became queen.] 

^ \Essai sur la Podsie Epique (CEuvres de Voltaire, viii., 346). In a note it 
is stated : " Cet Essai avait d'abord it€ compost en anglais par I'auteur lorsqu'il 
6tait a Londres, en 1726 ; on le traduisit en franpais a Paris : . . . mais, depuis, 
I'auteur refondit cet ouvrage en I'^crivant en franpais ". See also ib., p. 424.] 

•> [Ante, p. II, n. 1. " Ses Alinwires du comte de Grammont, son beau-fr^re, 
sont de tous les livres celui 011 le fonds le plus mince est par6 du style le plus 
gai, le plus vif et le plus agr^able. C'est le modele d'une conversation enjou^e, 
plus que le modde d'un livre" (ib., xvii. , 97). 

In the introduction to Sir Walter Scott's edition of the English version the 
English verses are given.] 

■* [" Primus ego in patriam mecum (modo vita supersit) 
Aonio rediens deducam vertice Musas." 

(Virgil, Georgica, iii., 10.) 
" I, first of Romans, shall in triumph come 
From conquered Greece, and bring her trophies home." 

(Dryden. )] 



134 EDWARD GIBBON [i76o-62 

explored this untrodden path must be left to the decision of 
my French readers. Dr. Maty^ who might himself be ques- 
tioned as a foreigner, has secured his retreat at my expense. 
" Je ne crois pas que vous vous piquiez d'etre moins facile a 
reconnaitre pour un Anglois que Lucullus pour un Romain." 
My friends at Paris have been more indulgent, they received 
me as a countryman, or at least as a provincial ; but they were 
friends and Parisians. ^ The defects which Maty insinuates, 
" Ces traits saillants, ces figures hardies, ce sacrifice de la regie 
au sentiment, et de la cadence a la force," ^ are the faults 
of the youth, rather than of the stranger : and after the long 
and laborious exercise of my own language, I am conscious 
that my French style has been ripened and improved. 

I have already hinted, that the publication of my essay was 
delayed till I had embraced the military profession. I shall 
now amuse myself with the recollection of an active scene, 
which bears no affinity to any other period of my studious and 
social life. 

In the outset of a glorious war, the English people had 
been defended by the aid of German mercenaries.*^ A national 

1 The copious extracts which were given in the Journal Etranger by Mr. 
Suard, a judicious critic, must satisfy both the author and the public. I may 
here observe, that I have never seen in any literary review a tolerable account 
of my History. The manufacture of journals, at least on the continent, is 
miserably debased. — Gibbon. 

[Gibbon wanted Suard to translate the Decline {Misc. Works, ii. , 176). He 
had translated Robertson's Charles V. (Stewart's Robertson, p. 218), and 
Hume's Concise Account of the Dispute between Mr. Huine and Air. Rousseau 
(Hume's Letters to Strahan, pp. 92-93). 

" The first time Suard saw Burke, who was at Reynolds's, Johnson touched 
him on the shoulder and said, ' Le grand Burke ' " [Boswelliana, p. 299). When 
in 1774 Suard was admitted into the French Academy, Voltaire wrote to him : 
" Je vais relire votre Discours pour la quatri^me fois " {CEuvres de Voltaire, 
Ivi., 387). 

" Sallo [Denis de), n6 en 1626 . . . inventeur des journaux. Bayle perfec- 
tionna ce genre, d6shonore ensuite par quelques journaux que publierent k I'envi 
des libraires avides, et que des ecrivains obscurs remplirent d'extraits infideles, 
d'inepties et de mensonges. Enfin on est parvenu jusqu'a faire un trafic public 
d'^loges et de censures, surtout dans des feuilles p^riodiques ; et la litt^rature a 
6prouv6 le plus grand avilissement par ces infames manages" [ib., xvii., i5i).] 

2 l^Misc. Works, iv. , 13. See ante, p. 129, n.] 

3 [On March 23, 1756, the King informed Parliament, that, as France 
threatened an invasion, he had sent for a body of Hessian troops. Both 
Houses addressed him to send in addition for twelve battalions of his Electoral 
troops with artillery (/'flr/. Hist., xv., 700-3). "As the fears of an invasion 



1760-62] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 135 

militia has been the cry of every patriot since the Revolution ^ ; 
and this measure, both in parliament and in the field, was 
supported by the country gentlemen or Tories, who insensibly 
transferred their loyalty to the house of Hanover : in the 
language of Mr. Burke, they have changed the idol, but they 
have preserved the idolatry. ^ In the act of offering our 
names and receiving our commissions, as major and captain^ 
in the Hampshire regiment (June 12, 1759), we had not 
supposed that we should be dragged away, my father from 
his farm, myself from my books, and condemned, during two 
years and a half (May 10, 1760 to December 23, 1762), 
to a wandering life of military servitude. But a weekly or 
monthly exercise of thirty thousand provincials would have left 
them useless and ridiculous ; and after the pretence of an in- 
vasion had vanished, the popularity of Mr. Pitt gave a sanction 
to the illegal step of keeping them till the end of the war under 
arms, in constant pay and duty, and at a distance from their 
respective homes.* When the King's order for our embodying 

subsided in the minds of the people, their antipathy to these foreign auxiliaries 
emerged. The ministry was execrated for having reduced the nation to such 
a low circumstance of disgrace as that they should owe their security to German 
mercenaries. Nothing would have restrained them from violent acts of outrage 
but the most orderly, modest and inoffensive behaviour by which both the 
Hanoverians and Hessians were distinguished " (Smollett's England, ed. i8oo, 
iii-. 49S)-] 

i[See Appendix 23 and ante, p. 119, n.'\ 

2 [Gibbon says that he had heard Burke exclaim this in the House of 
Commons {Auto., p. 182).] 

■'' [Men of property only were qualified to act as officers. ' ' The qualification 
of a major shall be ^^300, and of a captain _^20o per annum, half of which 
shall be within the county for which they serve" [Gent. Mag., 1762, p. 226).] 

■*[" They are not compellable to march out of their counties, unless in case 
of invasion or actual rebellion" (Blackstone's Commentaries, ed. 1775, i. , 412). 
On May 30, 1759, Pitt communicated a message to the Commons from the 
King, " in which, in pursuance of the late Act, His Majesty acquainted the 
House of the imminent danger of an invasion being attempted ; to the end that 
His Majesty may cause the militia to march as occasion shall require". The 
Commons rephed : "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, 
that he will be graciously pleased to give directions to his Lieutenants of the 
several counties to use their utmost diligence to carry into execution the several 
Acts of Parliament made for the better ordering the militia forces " (Pari. Hist. , 
XV., 940). " The threats of an invasion," wrote Burke, "in a great measure 
executed the Militia Act, which hardly anything else could have put in execu- 
tion. . . . Such is the effect when power and patriotism unite ; when liberty and 
order kiss ; and when a nation sits with a happy security under the shade of 



136 EDWARD GIBBON [i76o-62 

came down, it was too late to retreat, and too soon to repent. 
The south battahon of the Hampshire militia was a small 
independent corps of four hundred and seventy-six, officers and 
men, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Thomas Worsley.^ 
who, after a prolix and passionate contest, delivered us from 
the tyranny of the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Bolton.- 
My proper station, as first captain, was at the head of my own, 
and afterwards of the grenadier, company ^ ; but in the 
absence, or even in the presence, of the two field officers, I 
was entrusted by my friend and my father with the eifective 
labour of dictating the orders, and exercising the battalion. 
With the help of an original journal, I could write the history 
of my bloodless and inglorious campaigns ; but as these events 
have lost much of their importance in my own eyes, they shall 
be dispatched in a few words. From Winchester, the first 
place of assembly (June 4, 1760), we were removed, at our 
own request, for the benefit of a foreign education. By the 
arbitrary, and often capricious, orders of the War-office, the 
battalion successively marched to the pleasant and hospitable 
Blandford (June 17); to Hilsea barracks, a seat of disease 

abilities which she has tried, and virtues in which she dares to confide " 
{^Annual Register, 1759, i. , 7). 

The resolution of the House, whatever effect it had at the time — and it seems 
to be drawn up ambiguously — must have lost its power when, less than six 
months later, by Hawke's victory over the French fleet (Nov. 20, 1759) " the 
long threatened invasion was dissipated" (ib., i. , 53).] 

1 [Gibbon has the following entries in his journal : "Aug. 28, 1762. To-day 
Sir Thomas came to us to dinner. The Spa has done him a great deal of good, 
for he looks another man. Pleased to see him, we kept bumperizing till after 
roll-calling ; Sir Thomas assuring us, every fresh bottle, how infinitely soberer 
he was grown. 29th. I felt the usual consequence of Sir Thomas's company, 
and lost a morning because I lost the day before" {Post, Appendix 23. See 
also Auto., p. 189). 

A militiaman who appeared drunk " at the time of exercise " had " to forfeit 
ten shillings, or sit an hour in the stocks" (Gent. Mag., T-JSj, p. 303).] 

2 [For his "tyranny" see Auto., p. 183. "July 12, 1765. The Duke of 
Bolton, the other morning — nobody knows why or wherefore, except that there 
is a good deal of madness in the blood, sat himself down upon the floor in his 
dressing-room, and shot himself through the head" (Walpole's Letters, iv. , 
385). See also ante, p. 119, «.] 

^[See Read's Hist. Studies, ii., 373, for "An Account of a Week's pay Due 
to Captain Gibbon's Company of Militia ". The pay of a private was 3s. 5d. a 
week; of a sergeant 6s. lod.] 



1760-62] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 137 

and discord 1 (September 1) ; to Cranbrook in the weald of 
Kent (December 11); to the sea-coast of Dover (December 
27); to Winchester camp (June 25, I76l); to the populous 
and disorderly town of the Devizes (October 23) ; to 
Salisbury (February 28, 1762); to our beloved Blandford 
a second time (March 9) ; and finally, to the fashionable re- 
sort of Southampton (June 2) ; where the colours were fixed 
till our final dissolution (December 23). On the beach at 
Dover we had exercised in sight of the Gallic shores. But 
the most splendid and useful scene of our life was a four 
months' encampment on Winchester Down, under the 
command of the Earl of Effingham.'-^ Our army consisted of 
the thirty-fourth regiment of foot and six militia corps. The 
consciousness of our defects was stimulated by friendly 
emulation. We improved our time and opportunities in 
morning and evening field-days ; and in the general reviews 
the South Hampshire were rather a credit than a disgrace to 
the line. In our subsequent quarters of the Devizes and 
Blandford, we advanced with a quick step in our military 
studies ; the ballot of the ensuing summer renewed our vigour 
and youth ; and had the militia subsisted another year, we 
might have contested the prize with the most perfect of our 
brethren. 

1 [These barracks were "within the Portsmouth hnes, a square of low, ill- 
built huts, where," says Gibbon, " we lost many men by fevers and the small- 
pox" {Auto., p. 185). Dr. Brocklesby, the physician of Johnson and Burke 
(Boswell's Johnson, iv. , 173, 338, 399), described the barracks in 1763: 
' ' The ceilings are low, and ventilators are wanting. They are worse than any 
ship kept tolerably clean, as the country adjacent is overflowed twice a day. 
The small-pox apartments are rooms little more than six feet high, with 
windows that cannot be opened ; and in these no less than sixteen loathsome 
bodies were often crowded. These barracks swept off the men like a perpetual 
pestilence. The windows are not suffered to be open, with a view to keep the 
men warm, and yet save the expense of fire." "The straw," he adds, "on 
which men lie in their tents should be aired, and turned three times a week."] 

2 [Horace Walpole, writing just after the coronation of George III. , said that 
the King complained that "the Heralds were ignorant of their office. Lord 
Effingham, the Earl Marshal, told him he had taken such care of registering 
directions, that next coronation would be conducted with the greatest order 
imaginable. The King was so diverted with iMs flattering speech that he made 
the Earl repeat it several times" (Walpole's Letters, iii., 445). For a review 
by his Lordship see post. Appendix 24; for his incapacity — "our drowsy 
general" Gibbon called him — see Auto., p. 186.] 



138 EDWARD GIBBON [1760-62 

The loss of so many busy and idle hours was not compen- 
sated by any elegant pleasure ; and my temper was insensibly 
soured by the society of our rustic officers.^ In every state 
there exists, however, a balance of good and evil. The habits 
of a sedentary life were usefully broken by the duties of an 
active profession : in the healthful exei'cise of the field I 
hunted with a battalion, instead of a pack ; and at that time 
I was ready, at any hour of the day or night, to fly from 
quarters to London, from London to quarters, on the slightest 
call of private or regimental business. But my principal 
obligation to the militia was the making me an Englishman, 
and a soldier. After my foreign education, with my reserved 
temper, I should long have continued a stranger in my native 
country, had I not been shaken in this various scene of new 
faces and new friends ; had not experience forced me to feel 
the characters of our leading men, the state of parties, the 
forms of office, and the operation of our civil and military 
system. In this peaceful service I imbibed the rudiments of 
the language, and science of tactics, which opened a new 
field of study and observation. I diligently read, and medi- 
tated the Memoires Militaires of Quintus Icilius (Mr. Guichardt), 
the only writer who has united the merits of a professor and 
a veteran. The discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion 
gave me a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion ; and 
the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers (the reader may 
smile) has not been useless to the historian of the Roman 
empire. 2 

^[Post, p. 168 ; and Auto., p. 189.] 

2 [Gibbon, recording in his journal his study of these Mimoires, continues : 
" Indeed, my own military knowledge was of some service to me, as I am well 
acquainted with the modern discipline and exercise of a battalion. So that 
though much inferior to M. Folard and M. Guichardt, who had seen service, I 
am a much better judge than Salmasius, Casaubon, or Lipsius, mere scholars 
who perhaps had never seen a battalion under arms" {Misc. Works, v., 222). 
" Guichardt's Analysis of the two Campaigns in Spain and Africa is the 
noblest monument that has ever been raised to the fame of Caesar" (The 
Decline, ii. , 524). "Alas ! Quintus Icihus is no more" {ib., vi. , 65). 

Carlyle tells how Captain Guichard (not Guichardt) got his names Quintus 
Icilius and his promotion given him by Frederick the Great. ' ' One night the 
topic happened to be Pharsalia, and the excellent conduct of a certain centurion 
of the Tenth Legion. . . . ' A dexterous man, that Quintus Icilius the 



1760-62] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 139 

A youth of any spirit is fired even by the play of arms, and 
in the first sallies of my enthusiasm I had seriously attempted 
to embrace the regular profession of a soldier. ^ But this 
military fever was cooled by the enjoyment of our mimic 
Bellona, who soon unveiled to my eyes her naked deformity. 
How often did I sigh for my proper station in society and 
letters. How often (a proud comparison) did I repeat the 
complaint of Cicero in the command of a provincial army : 
" Clitellae bovi sunt impositae. Est incredibile quam me 
negotii tsedeat. Non habet satis magnum campum ille tibi 
non ignotus cursus animi ; et industrise meae praeclara opera 
cessat. Lucem, libros, urbem, domum, vos desidero. Sed 
feram, ut potero ; sit modo annuum. Si prorogatur, actum 
est.2 " From a service without danger I might indeed have 
retired without disgrace ; but as often as I hinted a wish of 
resigning, my fetters were riveted by the friendly intreaties of 
the colonel, the parental authority of the major, and my own 
regard for the honour and welfare of the battalion. When I 
felt that my personal escape was impracticable, I bowed my 
neck to the yoke : my servitude was protracted far beyond the 

Centurion ! ' observed Frederick. ' Ah, yes ; but excuse me, your Majesty, his 
name was Quintus Caecilius,' said Guichard. ' No, it was Icilius,' said the 
K-ing, positive to his opinion on that small point. . . . Next day, Guichard 
came with the book" (what "Book" nobody would ever yet tell me), "and 
putting his finger on the passage, ' See, your Majesty : Quintus Cascilius ! ' 
extinguished his royal opponent. ' Hm,' answered Frederick ; ' so ? — Well, you 
shall be Quintus Icilius, at any rate ! ' And straightway had him entered in 
the Army Books as 'Major Quintus Icilius'" {Frederick the Great, lo vol., 
ed. n.d. , viii. , 114). Carlyle describes "his new book on the Art Military of 
the Ancients" as " a solid account of that matter, by the first man who ever 
understood both war and Greek" [ib., p. 2).] 

1 \^Post, end of Appendix 23. Gibbon's service in the militia seems to have 
left a stain on his character, when we find him writing of soldiers being " de- 
graded by the industry of mechanic trades" ( The Decline, ii. , 177).] 

'~\_EpistolcB ad Atticum, v., 15. Gibbon italicised "libros," as an indication 
that he had changed the word. In the original it is "forum ". He has changed 
moreover the order of the sentence. The first four words come later on in the 
letter than the rest of the quotation. The following is W. Heberden's transla- 
tion of the passage as Cicero wrote it : " It is not to be believed how sick I am 
of this business. The activity of my mind, with which you are so well acquainted 
has not a sufficient field to exert itself ; and the notable effect of my industry is 
lost. ... I want the splendour, the forum, the city, my own home, and you. 
But I will bear it as I can, provided it be but for one year. . . . The paniers, 
as they say, have been put on the wrong beast " (Cicero's Letters^ 1825, i., 289).] 



140 EDWARD GIBBON [i 760-62 

annual patience of Cicero ; and it was not till after the pre- 
liminaries of peace ^ that I received my discharge, from the 
act of government which disembodied the militia.^ 

When I complain of the loss of time, justice to myself and 
to the militia must throw the greatest part of that reproach on 
the first seven or eight months, while I was obliged to learn 
as well as to teach. The dissipation of Blandford, and the 
disputes of Portsmouth, consumed the hours which were not 
employed in the field ; and amid the perpetual hurry of an 
inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished 
from my mind. After this long fast, the longest which I have 
ever known, I once more tasted at Dover the pleasures of 
reading and thinking ; and the hungry appetite with which I 
opened a volume of Tully's philosophical works is still present 
to my memory.^ The last review of my Essay before its pub- 
lication, had prompted me to investigate the nature of the gods ; 
my inquiries led me to the Histoire Critique du Manich6isme 
of Beausobre, who discusses many deep questions of Pagan and 
Christian theology * : and from this rich treasury of facts and 
opinions, I deduced my own consequences, beyond the holy 
circle of the author. After this recovery I never relapsed 
into indolence ; and my example might prove, that in the life 
most averse to study, some hours may be stolen, some minutes 
may be snatched. Amidst the tumult of Winchester camp I 
sometimes thought and read in my tent ; in the more settled 

1 [The preliminaries were signed on Nov. 3, 1762 {Annual Register, 1762, i., 
S4)-] 

2 [See Appendix 24 for Gibbon's journal.] 

2[" I lost some time," he wrote, " before I could recover my habit of appli- 
cation" {post, Appendix 23, under date of Jan. 11, 1761).] 

4 [' ' The learned historian [Beausobre] spins with incomparable art the 
systematic thread of opinion, and transforms himself by turns into the person 
of a saint, a sage, or an heretic. Yet his refinement is sometimes excessive ; he 
betrays an amiable partiality in favour of the weaker side, and, while he guards 
against calumny, he does not allow sufficient scope for superstition and 
fanaticism" {The Decline, v., 97). 

On his death in 1738, Frederick the Great wrote to Voltaire: "Nous 
venons de perdre ici un des plus grands hommes d'Allemagne. C'est le 
fameux M. de Beausobre . . . ennemi implacable des j&uites, la meilleure 
plume de Berlin . . . d'ailleurs sentant quelque faible pour la superstition" 
{(Euvres de Voltaire, lix. , 256).] 



1760-62] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 141 

quarters of the Devizes, Blandford, and Southampton, I always 
secured a separate lodging, and the necessary books ; and in 
the summer of 1762, while the new militia was raising,^ I 
enjoyed at Buriton two or three months of literary repose. 
In forming a new plan of study, I hesitated between the 
mathematics and the Greek language ; both of which I had 
neglected since my return from Lausanne. I consulted a 
learned and friendly mathematician, Mr. George Scott, a pupil 
of de Moivre ^ ; and his map of a country which I have never 
explored, may perhaps be more serviceable to others.^ As 
soon as I had given the preference to Greek, the example of 
Scaliger and my own reason determined me on the choice of 
Homer, the father of poetry, and the Bible of the ancients : 
but Scaliger ran through the Iliad in one and twenty days ; * 
and I was not dissatisfied with my own diligence for perform- 
ing the same labour in an equal number of weeks. After the 
first difficulties were surmounted, the language of nature and 
harmony^ soon became easy and familiar, and each day I 
sailed upon the ocean with a brisker gale and a more steady 
course. 



1 [The militia served for three years (G^«?. Mag., 1757, p. 302). They had 
been raised in the summer of 1759 (ante, p. 135).] 

2 [" De Moivre, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, settled in England. 
He revolutionised higher trigonometry by the discovery of the theorem known 
by his name. . . . His work on the theory of probability surpasses anything 
done by any other mathematician except Laplace" (Cajori's Hist, of Math. , 
1894, p. 245).] 

' [See Misc. Works, ii. , 44. Scott was a Commissioner of Excise. He had 
been sub-preceptor to the Prince of Wales (George IH.), on Bolingbroke's 
recommendation. For his clapping Johnson on the back see Boswell's Joknso7i, 
'in., 117, and Jokn. Misc., i. , 180).] 

■*[Pattison (Essays, i., 137) describes how Joseph Scaliger, at the age of 
eighteen, began the study of Greek by enrolling himself in the class of the most 
renowned Greek scholar in Europe. " A trial of two months opened his eyes, 
and he understood that to begin one must begin at the beginning. He resolved 
to shut himself up in his chamber, and become his own teacher. With the aid 
of a Latin translation he went through Homer in one and twenty days." 
Pattison adds (p. ig8) that Scaliger does not say whether by Homer he means 
both the Iliad and Odyssey. For Gibbon's reasons for beginning with Homer 
see Misc. Works, v., 243.] 

s[In The Decline, vii. , 114, he describes Greek as " a musical and prolific 
language, that gives a soul to the objects of sense, and a body to the abstrac- 
tions of philosophy)".] 



142 EDWARD GIBBON [i76o-62 

'Ey 5' hve/xos irprjffev fxeffov Iffriov, aficpl Se KVjxa 
'Sreiprj ■jTop<pvpeov /jieydX' Jaxe, vrjbs lov(T7]s • 
'H 5' e&eev Kara Kvjxa dLairpTjcrcrovira KeXevOa.^ 

In the study of a poet who has since become the most in- 
timate of my friends, I successively applied many passages 
and fragments of Greek writers ; and among these I shall 
notice a life of Homer^ in the Opuscula Mythologica of Gale,^ 
several books of the geography of Strabo,^ and the entire 
treatise of Longinus, which, from the title and the style, is 
equally worthy of the epithet of sublime.^ My grammatical 
skill was improved, my vocabulary was enlarged ; and in the 
militia I acquired a just and indelible knowledge of the first 
of languages. On every march, in every journey, Horace was 
always in my pocket, and often in my hand : but I should not 
mention his two critical epistles, the amusement of a morning, 
had they not been accompanied by the elaborate commentary 
of Dr. Hurd, now Bishop of Worcester.^ On the interesting 

'^[Iliad, i., 481.] 

" Fair wind, and blowing fresh, 

Apollo sent them ; quick they rear'd the mast, 
Then spread th' unsullied canvas to the gale, 
And the wind fill'd it. Roar'd the sable flood 
Around the bark, that ever as she went 
Dash'd wide the brine, and scudded swift away." 

(Covirper's Home)-.) — Sheffield. 
'^ [Thomas Gale. Evelyn recorded on Jan. 29, 1683 : "Supped at Sir Joseph 
Williamson's, where was a select company of our Society [the Royal Society], 
Sir William Petty, Dr. Gale (that learned schoolmaster of St. Paul's), etc. 
The conversation was philosophical and cheerful, on divers considerable 
questions proposed ; as of the hereditary succession of the Roman Emperors " 
(Evelyn's Diary, ii., 180). Gale was made Dean of York. See Pepys's Diary, 
ed. 1851, v., 423, for an amusing anecdote about his ghost.] 

"^[Gibbon recorded on Dec. 31, 1763: "I have always been an admirer of 
Strabo's good sense and variety of knowledge. Antiquity has left us more 
brilliant performances than his ; but I know of none more solid and more 
useful" {Misc. WorA's, v., 445).] 

^[See ii., v., 252-55, 262-69, 273-77, for Gibbon's study and criticism of 
Longinus in 1762. On Oct. 3 he recorded : " Till now I was acquainted only 
with two ways of criticising a beautiful passage : the one, to show by an exact 
anatomy of it the distinct beauties of it, and whence they sprung ; the other, an 
idle exclamation, or a general encomium, which leaves nothing behind it. 
Longinus has shown me that there is a third. He tells me his own feelings 
upon reading it ; and tells them with such energy that he communicates them " 
(i6., p. 263). See also T/ie Decline, i., 58, 309.] 

^\Horatii Flacci Episiolrs ad Pisones et Augustum ; with an English Com- 
tnentary and Notes. Second edition. Cambridge, 1757. Gibbon wrote of 



1760-62] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 143 

subjects of composition and imitation of epic and dramatic 
poetry, I presumed to think for myself; and thirty close- 
written pages in folio could scarcely comprise my full and free 
discussion of the sense of the master and the pedantry of the 
servant. 

After his oracle Dr. Johnson, ^ my friend Sir Joshua Reynolds 
denies all original genius, any natural propensity of the mind 
to one art or science rather than another. ^ Without engaging 
in a metaphysical or rather verbal dispute, I know, by experi- 
ence, that from my early youth I aspired to the character of 
an historian.^ While I served in the militia, before and after 
the publication of my essay, this idea ripened in my mind ; 
nor can I paint in more lively colours the feelings of the 
moment, than by transcribing some passages, under their 
respective dates, from a journal which I kept at that time. 

Buriton, April 14, 1761. 

(In a short excursion from Dover.) 

" Having thought of several subjects for an historical com- 
position, I chose the expedition of Charles VIII. of France 
into Italy.* I read two memoirs of Mr. de Foncemagne^ 
in the Academy of Inscriptions (torn, xvii., pp. 5S^ — 607), and 

Hurd : " I know few writers more deserving of the great, though prostituted, 
name of critic ; but, hke many critics, he is better quahfied to instruct than to 
execute. His manner appears to me harsh and affected, and his style clouded 
with obscure metaphors, and needlessly preplexed with expressions exotic or 
technical. . . . His discourse upon the several provinces of the drama is a 
truly critical performance ; I may even say, a truly philosophical one" {Misc. 
Works, iv., 113, 134). S)&Qpost, pp. 146, 178. 

Boswell wrote a long note on one of Hurd's Notes [Life of Johnson, iii., 74).] 

i["We are both of Dr. Johnson's school," Reynolds wrote to a friend. 
" He may be said to have formed my mind, and to have brushed from it a 
great deal of dust" (John. Misc., ii., 227; BossieWs Johnson, i., 245).] 

2 [See Appendix 25.] 

'■^[Ante, p. 43. Gibbon was an exception to Johnson's rule. " Never ask 
a baby of seven years old," he said, "which way his genius leads him, when we 
all know that a boy of seven years old has no genius for anything except a 
peg-top and an apple-pie" [John. Misc., i. , 314).] 

''["I meditate," Gibbon wrote, "a history of the expedition of Charles 
Vni. into Italy ; an event which changed the face of Europe" {Atisc. Works, 
iii., 206). " In five months Charles VIII. traversed affrighted Italy as a con- 
queror, gave laws to the Florentines and the Pope, was acknowledged King of 
Naples, and assumed the title of Emperor of the East " {id., p. 51).] 

5 [_Post, p. 153.] 



144 EDWARD GIBBON [i762 

abstracted them. I likewise finished this day a dissertation, 
in which I examine the right of Charles VIII. to the crown 
of Naples, and the rival claims of the House of Anjou and 
Arragon : it consists of ten folio pages, besides large notes." ^ 

Buriton, August 4<, 1761. 

(In a week's excursion from Winchester camp.) 

"After having long revolved subjects for my intended 
historical essay, I renounced my first thought of the ex- 
pedition of Charles VIII. as too remote from us, and rather an 
introduction to great events, than great and important in 
itself. I successively chose and rejected the crusade of 
Richard the First, the barons' wars against John and Henry 
III,, the History of Edward the Black Prince, the lives and 
comparisons of Henry V. and the Emperor Titus, the life of 
Sir Philip Sidney, or that of the Marquis of Montrose. At 
length I have fixed on Sir Walter Raleigh for my hero. His 
eventful story is varied by the characters of the soldier and 
sailor, the courtier and historian ; and it may afford such a 
fund of materials as I desire, which have not yet been properly 
manufactured. At present I cannot attempt the execution of 
this work. Free leisure, and the opportunity of consulting 
many books, both printed and manuscript, are as necessary as 
they are impossible to be attained in my present way of life. 
However, to acquire a general insight into my subject and 
resources, I read the life of Sir Walter Raleigh by Dr. Birch, ^ 
his copious article in the General Dictionary by the same hand, 
and the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James the First in 
Hume's History of TLngland!' 

Buriton, Januarx) 1762. 

(In a month's absence from the Devizes.) 

" During this interval of repose, I again turned my thoughts 
to Sir Walter Raleigh, and looked more closely into my mate- 
rials. I read the two volumes in quarto of the Bacon Papers, 
published by Dr. Birch ; the Fragmenta Regalia of Sir Robert 

^[Misc. Works , ni. , 2o6.] 

2 [See Boswell's Johnson, i., 226, for Johnson's letter to Birch about an auto- 
graph manuscript of Raleigh's.] 



1762] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 145 

Naunton, Mallet's Life of Lord Bacon,^ and the political 
treatises of that great man in the first volume of his works, 
with many of his letters in the second ; Sir William Monson's 
Naval Tracts, and the elaborate Lfe of Sir Walter Raleigh, 
which Mr. Oldys has prefixed to the best edition of his Histor-y 
of the World.'^ My subject opens upon me, and in general 
improves upon a nearer prospect." 

Buriton, July 26, 1762. 

(During my summer residence.) 

" I am afraid of being reduced to drop my hero ; but my 
time has not, however, been lost in the research of his story, 
and of a memorable aera of our English annals. The Life of 
Sir Walter Raleigh, by Oldys, is a very poor performance ; a 
servile panegyric, or flat apology, tediously minute, and com- 
posed in a dull and affected style. Yet the author was a man 
of diligence and learning, who had read everything relative to 
his subject, and whose ample collections are arranged with 
perspicuity and method. Excepting some anecdotes lately 
revealed in the Sidney and Bacon Papers,^ I know not what I 
should be able to add. My ambition (exclusive of the uncer- 
tain merit of style and sentiment) must be confined to the 
hope of giving a good abridgment of Oldys. ^ I have even 
the disappointment of finding some parts of this copious work 
very dry and barren ; and these parts are unluckily some of 
the most characteristic : Raleigh's colony of Virginia,, his 
quarrels with Essex, the true secret of his conspiracy, and. 



1 [Ante, p. 82, n. i.] 

2 [Published in 1736 in 2 vols. , folio.] 

3 [" Letters and Memorials of State, wrote and collected by the Sydneys, etc. ; 
published by Arthur Collins Esq. ; 2 vols. " [Gent. Mag., 1746, p. 276). 

' ' Letters, Speeches, Charges, etc. , of Lord Chancellor Bacon ; published by T. 
Birch, D.D. " [ib., 1762, p. 602).] 

* [A list of Oldys's writings is given in the Gent. Mag., 1784, pp. 161, 272. 
' ' He was thrown into the Fleet prison for debt. . . . After his release, such 
was his affection for the place he left that he constantly spent his evenings in it. 
He was an excellent picker-up of facts and materials ; but had so little the 
power of arranging them, or connecting them by intermediate ideas, that he 
was obliged to discontinue his labours in the Biographia Britannica, and, I 
have been told, proceeded no further than the letter A " [ib., p. 260 ; see also 
'QoswelVs Johnson, i., 175).] 

10 



146 EDWARD GIBBON [i762 

above all, the detail of his private life, the most essential and 
important to a biographer. My best resource would be in the 
circumjacent history of the times, and perhaps in some digres- 
sions artfully introduced, like the fortunes of the Peripatetic 
philosophy in the portrait of Lord Bacon. But the reigns of 
Elizabeth and James the First are the period of English 
history which has been the most variously illustrated : and 
what new lights could I reflect on a subject which has exer- 
cised the accurate industry of Birch,^ the lively and curious 
acuteness of Walpole,'^ the critical spirit of Hurd,^ the vigorous 
sense of Mallet and Robertson, and the impartial philosophy of 
Hume ? Could I even surmount these obstacles, I should 
shrink with terror from the modern history of England, where 
every character is a problem, and every reader a friend or an 
enemy ; where a writer is supposed to hoist a flag of party, 
and is devoted to damnation by the adverse faction. Such 
would be my reception at home : and abroad, the historian of 
Raleigh must encounter an indifference far more bitter than 
censure or reproach. The events of his life are interesting ; 
but his character is ambiguous, his actions are obscure, his 
writings are English, and his fame is confined to the narrow 
limits of our language and our island. I must embrace a safer 
and more extensive theme. 

^ [Boswell's Johnson, i. , i6o, nJ] 

2 [Horace Walpole published in 1758 his Catalogue of Royal and Noble 
Authors. 

Gibbon, reviewing in 1768 in the Mimoires Britanniques his Historic 
Doubts on Richard III., says : " Avant lui I'histoire litt^raire, abandonn^e 
aux manceuvres de la litt^rature, n'avait pr^sent^ que des nomenclatures s^ches, 
ou des recherches minutieuses et pu^riles. La noblesse savante de M. Walpole 
a amus6 les gens du monde, et a m6rit6 I'attention des philosophes " (Misc. 
Works, iii. , 331). In some notes, to which Lord Sheffield assigns the date 
of 1768 or 1769, Gibbon describes Walpole as " that ingenious trifler," and 
goes on to criticise " a very puerile reflexion " of his [ib., v., 571).] 

^[Gibbon refers to Kurd's Moral and Political Dialogues (1759), which are 
described by Boswell as having ' ' a woefully Whiggish cast ' ' (Boswell's Johnson, 
iv., 190). It was "these," said George III., "that made Hurd a Bishop" 
(Parr's Works, i., 312, 323). Parr was told by Porson that "many notable 
discoveries might be made by comparing the varice lectiones, the clippings and 
the filings, the softenings and the varnishings of sundry constitutional doctrines, 
as they crept by little and little into the different successive editions " {ib., iii., 
369)-] 



1762] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 147 

" There is one which 1 should prefer to all others, The Hisioi-y 
of tlie Liberty of the Siviss,^ of that independence which a brave 
people rescued from the House of Austria, defended against 
a Dauphin of France, and finally sealed with the blood of 
Charles of Burgundy. From such a theme, so full of public 
spirit, of military glory, of examples of virtue, of lessons of 
government, the dullest stranger would catch fire ; what 
might not / hope, whose talents, whatsoever they may be, 
would be inflamed with the zeal of patriotism. But the 
materials of this history are inaccessible to me, fast locked 
in the obscurity of an old barbarous German dialect, of which 
I am totally ignorant,^ and which I cannot resolve to learn for 
this sole and peculiar purpose. 

" I have another subject in view, which is the contrast of 
the former history : the one a poor, warlike, virtuous republic, 
which emerges into glory and freedom ; the other a common- 
wealth, soft, opulent, and corrupt ; which, by just degrees, is 
precipitated from the abuse to the loss of her liberty : both 
lessons are, perhaps, equally instructive. This second subject 
is, The History of the Republic of Florence under the House of 
Medicis : a period of one hundred and fifty years, which rises 
or descends from the dregs of the Florentine democracy, to 
the title and dominion of Cosmo de Medicis in the Grand 
Duchy of Tuscany. I might deduce a chain of revolutions 
not unworthy of the pen of Vertot ^ ; singular men, and 
singular events ; the Medicis four times expelled, and as 
often recalled ; and the Genius of Freedom reluctantly yield- 
ing to the arms of Charles V. and the policy of Cosmo. The 
character and fate of Savanarola, and the revival of arts and 
letters in Italy, will be essentially connected with the eleva- 
tion of the family and the fall of the republic. The Medicis 
stirps quasi fataliter nata ad instauranda vel fovenda studia 
(Lipsius ad Germanos et Gallos, Epist. viii.) were illustrated 
by the patronage of learning ; and enthusiasm^ was the 

'^[^Post, p. 171.] 

2 [Gibbon never learnt German (post, p. 233).] 

'^^Ante, p. 90.] *U^-' P- 22, «.] 



148 EDWARD GIBBON [i763 

most formidable weapon of their adversaries. On this splendid 
subject I shall most probably fix ; but 7vhe7i, or where, or ho7v 
will it be executed ? I behold in a dark and doubtful perspec- 
tive." 

Res alta terra, et caligine mersas.^ 

The youthful habits of the language and manners of France 
had left in my mind an ardent desire of revisiting the Continent 
on a larger and more liberal plan. According to the law of 
custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the 
education of an English gentleman ^ : my father had consented 
to my wish, but I was detained above four years by my rash 
engagement in the militia. I eagerly grasped the first 
moments of freedom : three or four weeks in Hampshire and 
London were employed in the preparations of my journey, 
and the farewell visits of friendship and civility : my last act 
in town was to applaud Mallet's new tragedy of Elvira ^ ; a 
post-chaise conveyed me to Dover, the packet to Boulogne, 
and such was my diligence, that I reached Paris * on the 28th 
of January, 1763, only thirty-six days after the disbanding of 
the militia. Two or three years were loosely defined for the 
term of my absence ; and I was left at liberty to spend that 
time in such places and in such a manner as was most agree- 
able to my taste and judgment.^ 

In this first visit I passed three months and a half (January 
28 — May 9), and a much longer space might have been agree- 
ably filled, without any intercourse with the natives. At 
home we are content to move in the daily round of pleasure 

1 [Virgil, ^^neid, vi. , 267.] 

^[Post, p. 167.] sj^See Appendix 26.] 

* [Horace Walpole, travelling the same journey in 1765, wrote: "From 
Boulogne to Paris it will cost me near ten guineas ; but then consider, I travel 
alone, and carry Louis most part of the way in the chaise with me. A'ous 
autres milords Anglais are not often so frugal" (Walpole's Letters, iv. , 402). 
Gibbon also travelled alone in a post-chaise (Corres., i. , 27).] 

5 [In addition to the annuity which he enjoyed of ;i^300, ^^1,200 was allowed 
by his father for "the extraordinaries of his travels" [Auto., pp. 155, 156). 
" Whilst I was abroad," he wrote, " I spent about ;^700 a year, a sum, which 
with the unavoidable expences of travelling, barely supports the appearance of 
an English gentleman" {Corres., i. , 136).] 



1763] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 149 

and business ; and a scene which is always present is supposed 
to be within our knowledge, or at least within our power. 
But in a foreign country, curiosity is our business and our 
pleasure ; and the traveller^ conscious of his ignorance, and 
covetous of his time, is diligent in the search and the view of 
every object that can deserve his attention. I devoted many 
hours of the morning to the circuit of Paris and the neighbour- 
hood, to the visit of churches and palaces conspicuous by their 
architecture, to the royal manufactures, collections of books 
and pictures, and all the various treasures of art, of learning, 
and of luxury.^ An Englishman may hear without reluctance, 
that in these curious and costly articles Paris is superior to 
London ; since the opulence of the French capital arises from 
the defects of its government and religion. In the absence 
of Louis XIV. and his successors, the Louvre has been left un- 
finished : but the millions which have been lavished on the 
sands of Versailles, and the morass of Marli, could not be 
supplied by the legal allowance of a British king.^ The 

^ [Horace Walpole wrote from Paris to Gray on Nov. 19, 1765 (^Letters, iv., 
435) • " The charms of Paris have not the least attraction for me, nor would 
keep me an hour on their own account. For the city itself, I cannot conceive 
where my eyes were ; it is the ugliest, beastliest town in the universe."] 

2 [Versailles and Marli, wrote Gibbon, " have been cemented with the blood 
of the people " [Auto. , p. 263). Voltaire [CEtmres, xxv. , 311) says of Versailles : 
" II [Louis XIV] d^pensa a ce palais et aux jardins plus de cinq cents millions, 
qui en font plus de neuf cents de notre espfece actuelle [^36,000,000]. M. le 
Due de Cr^qui lui disait : ' Sire, vous avez beau faire, vous n'en ferez Jamais 
qu'un favori sans nitrite.' " Adam Smith points out the harm that was done 
in another way by Versailles. He instances it as one of those towns, " supported 
by the constant or occasional residence of a Court, in which the inferior ranks of 
people being chiefly maintained by the spending of revenue, are in general idle, 
dissolute, and poor" (IVealtk of Nations, ed. 1811, ii. , 91). Gibbon wrote in 
1776 of Louis's expenditure on his army and navy : " France still feels that 
extraordinary effort " [The Decline, i., 18). 

I have seen a copy of The Guardian in which Mrs. Piozzi recorded on the 
margin of No. loi : ' ' Poor lost Versailles ! Its misfortunes have been prettily 
celebrated in a popular street ballad of August, 1794, when there was much 
talk of an invasion from France :— 

' ' ' No British palace e'er was built 

With poor men's blood or tears, Sir, 
Like proud Versailles pollute with guilt, 

Which found a lot severe, Sir. 
Then let them shun our happy shore. 

Or back again we'll bang 'em ; 
And of their Tree of Liberty 

A gallows make to hang them.' "] 



150 EDWARD GIBBON [i763 

splendour of the French nobles is confined to their town 
residence ; that of the English is more usefully distributed in 
their country seats ; and we should be astonished at our own 
riches, if the labours of architecture, the spoils of Italy and 
Greece, which are now scattered from Inverary ^ to Wilton,^ 
were accumulated in a few streets between Marybone and 
Westminster. All superfluous ornament is rejected by the 
cold frugality of the protestants ; but the catholic superstition, 
which is always the enemy of reason, is often the parent of the 
arts. The wealthy communities of priests and monks expend 
their revenues in stately edifices ; and the parish church of 
St. Sulpice, one of the noblest structures in Paris, was built 
and adorned by the private industry of a late cure.^ In this 
outset, and still more in the sequel of my tour, my eye was 
amused ; but the pleasing vision cannot be fixed by the pen ; 
the particular images are darkly seen through the medium of 
five-and-twenty years, and the narrative of my life must not 
degenerate into a book of travels. 

But the principal end of my journey was to enjoy the 
society of a polished and amiable people, in whose favour I 
was strongly prejudiced,* and to converse with some authors, 

1 [The seat of the Dukes of Argyle. " What I admire here," said Johnson, 
" is the total defiance of all expence " (Boswell's Johnson, v., 355).] 

2 [The seat of the Earls of Pembroke. "Versailles," wrote Adam Smith, 
"is an ornament and an honour to France, Stowe and Wilton to England" 
( Wealth of Nations, ii., 109).] 

^ [Voltaire said in an article entitled Des Embellissemens de Paris (1749) : 
" A qui appartient-il d'embellir la ville, sinon aux habitans qui jouissent dans 
son sein de tout ce que I'opulence et les plaisirs peuvent prodiguer aux hommes ? 
. . . Je ne demande autre chose, sinon qu'on veuille avec fermet6. . . . Le 
c61ebre cur6 de Saint-Sulpice voulut, et il batit, sans aucun fonds, un vaste 
Edifice" (Q2icvres de Voltaire, xxvi., 162, 170). The cur6, who died in 1750, 
was J. B. Languet de Gergy (ib., n.). 

Gibbon recorded in his journal on Feb. 21, 1763 : " Nous jetames ensuite un 
coup-d'ceil sur I'dglise de Saint-Sulpice, dont la fa9ade (le pr^texte et le fruit de 
tant de lotteries) n'est point encore achev^e " [Misc. Works, i., 160).] 

In The Morning Chronicle, Nov. 25, T793, under date of Paris, Nov. 11, it 
is reported that ' ' the Sections of Mutius Scsevola and of the Red Cap brought 
twenty hand carriages full of the precious spoils of the Church of St. Sulpitius. 
' That superb Temple,' said the Orator, ' whose gold, marble and brass 
reproach us with widows' and orphans' tears, shall be shut till the moment of 
its regeneration, when it shall be dedicated to Reason.' Honourable mention."] 

4 [In 1781 Gibbon described Lewis XVI. as "the absolute monarch of an 
industrious, wealthy and affectionate people" {The Decline, ii. , 196). "If 
Julian," he wrote, " could now revisit the capital of France, he might converse 



1763] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 151 

whose conversation, as I fondly imagined, must be far more 
pleasing and instructive than their writings. The moment 
was happily chosen. At the close of a successful war the 
British name was respected on the continent. 

Clarum et venerabile nomen 
Gentibus.^ 

Our opinions, our fashions, even our games, were adopted in 
France, a ray of national glory illuminated each individual, 
and every Englishman was supposed to be born a patriot and 
a philosopher.^ For myself, I carried a personal recommen- 
dation : my name and my Essay were already known ; the 
compliment of having written in the French language entitled 
me to some returns of civility and gratitude. I was considered 
as a man of letters,^ who wrote for amusement. Before my 
departure I had obtained from the Duke de Nivernois,^ Lady 
Hervey,^ the Mallets, Mr. Walpole, etc., many letters of 
recommendation to their private or literary friends. Of these 
epistles the reception and success were determined by the 

with men of science and genius, capable of understanding and of instructing a 
disciple of the Greeks ; he might excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, 
whose martial spirit has never been enervated by the indulgence of luxury ; and 
he must applaud the perfection of that inestimable art which softens and refines 
and embellishes the intercourse of social life" {ib., ii., 287). Eleven years later 
he described France as ' ' that inhospitable land in which a people of slaves is 
suddenly become a nation of tyrants and cannibals. . . . Our only hope is 
now in their devouring one another ; they are furious and hungfry monsters " 
(Misc. Works, ii. , 469, 474).] 

^[Lucan, ix., 202. For Burke's fine application of these lines to Lord 
Chatham see E. J. Payne's Burke, i., 144.] 

^[See Appendix 27.] 

3 [After " letters " follows in the original, " or rather as a gentleman " [Auto. , 
p. 200). See ib. for his boast how his dress, etc., distinguished him from other 
authors.] 

■* [Gibbon wrote of him: "A noble statesman, who has managed weighty 
and delicate negociations, ingeniously illustrates the political system of Clovis " 
( The Decline, iv. , 102). To the Duke he was introduced by Maty. ' ' He 
received me civilly, but (perhaps through Maty's fault) treated me more as a 
man of letters than as a man of fashion" [Misc. Works, i., 157). Gibbon, it 
seems, had something of the same feeling as Congreve, who " disgusted Voltaire 
by the despicable foppery of desiring to be considered not as an author, but a 
gentleman ; to which the Frenchman replied, that if he had been only a gentle- 
man, he should not have come to visit him " (Johnson's Works, viii., 30),] 

^[Ante, p. 115.] 



152 EDWARD GIBBON [ms 

character and situation of the persons by whom and to whom 
they were addressed : the seed was sometimes cast on a 
barren rock, and it sometimes xnultiplied an hundred fold in 
the production of new shoots^ spreading branches, and 
exquisite fruit. But upon the whole, I had reason to praise 
the national urbanity, which from the court has diffused its 
gentle influence to the shop, the cottage, and the schools. ^ 
Of the men of genius of the age, Montesquieu and Fontenelle 
were no more ; Voltaire resided on his own estate near Geneva ; 
Rousseau in the preceding year had been driven from his 
hermitage of Montmorency ; ^ and I blush at my having 
neglected to seek, in this journey, the acquaintance of BufFon.^ 
Among the men of letters whom I saw, D'Alembert and 
Diderot held the foremost rank in merit, or at least in fame. 
I shall content myself with enumerating the well-known 
names of the Count de Caylus,^ of the Abbe de la Bleterie, 
Barthelemy, Raynal, Arnaud, of Messieurs de la Condamine, 
du Clos, de S*^ Palaye, de Bougainville, Caperonnier, de 
Guignes, Suard, etc., without attempting to discriminate the 
shades of their characters, or the degrees of our connection. 
Alone, in a morning visit, I commonly found the artists and 
authors of Paris less vain, and more reasonable, than in the 
circles of their equals, with whom they mingle in the houses 



1 [Gibbon recorded in his journal in May, 1763 : ' ' Heureux effet de ce 
caractere Mger et aimable du Frangais, qui a ^tabli dans Paris una douceur at 
una liberty dans la soci^t^, inconnuas a I'antiquit^, et encore ignor^es das autras 
nations" [Misc. Works, i., 163). 

" In general," writes Walpole (Letters, iv. , 413), "the style of conversation 
is solemn, pedantic, and seldom animated but by a dispute. I was expressing 
my aversion to disputes. Mr. Hume, who very gratefully admires the tone of 
Paris, having never known any other tone, said with great surprise, "Why, 
what do you like, if you hate both disputes and whisk [whist]?"] 

2 [' ' Montmorency is a dirty little town 14 miles from Paris. In the house 
called L Ermitage, about half a mile off, Rousseau resided " (Murray's Hand- 
book for France, ed. 1859, p. 22). His Emile, published in 1762, being con- 
demned by the Parliament of Paris, he fled [CEuvres de Rousseau, ed. 1782, 
xxiv., 3).] 

^["The immortal Buffon]" {The Decline, iv. , 243). "Read (it is no un- 
plaasing task) the incomparable articles of the Horse and the Camel in the 
Natural History of M. de Bufifon " {ib. , v. , 315 ; see post, p. 199).] 

* [For these eminent men and women see Appendix 28.] 



1763] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 153 

of the rich.^ Four days in a week, I had a place, without 
invitation, at the hospitable tables of Mesdames GeofFrin and 
du Bocage, of the celebrated Helvetius, and of the Baron 
d'Olbach. In these symposia the pleasures of the table were 
improved by lively and liberal conversation ^ ; the company 
was select, though various and voluntary. 

The society of Madame du Bocage was more soft and 
moderate than that of her rivals, and the evening con- 
versations of M. de Foncemagne were supported by the 
good sense and learning of the principal members of the 
Academy of Inscriptions. The opera and the Italians I 
occasionally visited ; but the French theatre, both in tragedy 
and comedy, was my daily and favourite amusement. Two 
famous actresses then divided the public applause. For my 
own part, I preferred the consummate art of the Claron, to 
the intemperate sallies of the Dumesnil,^ which were extolled 
by her admirers, as the genuine voice of nature and passion.^ 

i[" Every woman has one or two authors planted in her house, and God 
knows how they water them" (Walpole's Letters, iv. , 416). "You know in 
England we read their works, but seldom or never take any notice of authors. 
We think them sufficiently paid if their books sell, and of course leave them to 
their colleges and obscurity, by which means we are not troubled with their 
vanity and impertinence" {ib., v., 26).] 

2 [For " the intolerant zeal " of the guests see Auto. , pp. 204, 262.] 

•■'[Horace Walpole wrote two years later: "The Dumesnil is still the 
Dumesnil, and nothing but curiosity could make me want the Clairon [she had 
left the stage] " (Walpole's Letters, iv. , 407, 422). In 1779 he wrote : " I cannot 
think that acting, however perfectly, what others have written is one of the most 
astonishing talents ; yet I will own as fairly that Mrs. Porter and Mademoiselle 
Dumesnil have struck me so much as even to reverence them " {ib., vii. , 170). 
Grimm, in 1790, described Mrs. Siddons as "la Clairon ou la Dumesnil de 
I'Angleterre " {Mimoires, etc., vii., 405).] 

''[Here follows a passage in two of the Memoirs {Auto., pp. 205, 263), where 
he writes that he ' ' reserved for the last the most exquisite blessing of life — a 
female friend who received me every evening with the smile of confidence and 
joy". To his step-mother he wrote of her : "She seems to have conceived a 
real motherly attachment for me " [Corres. , i. , 31k If the attachment that she 
felt for him was of that nature, why did he record \Auto. , p. 263) : " If her heart 
was tender, if her passions were warm, decency and gratitude should cast a veil 
over her frailties " ? Why, we may ask, did he thus raise the veil ? 

In 1766 he wrote to a Lausanne friend [the original spelling is reproduced] : 
" J'espere, mon cher ami, que vous ne vous etes rejett^ a corps perdu dans la 
fureur amoureuse. . . . Je ne sai si vous goutez mes principes et la pr^f^rence 
que je commence a donner au Physique de 1' Amour sur le Moral. A la cour de 
Cyth^re, comme dans toutes les autres, ne vaut il pas mieux faire des Dupes que 
de I'etre soi-meme? Cette fagon ramene tot ou tard un homme sens6 mais 



154 EDWARD GIBBON [ms 

Fourteen weeks insensibly stole away ; but had I been rich 
and independent, I should have prolonged, and perhaps have 
fixed, my residence at Paris. 

Between the expensive style of Paris and of Italy it was 
prudent to interpose some months of tranquil simplicity ; and 
at the thoughts of Lausanne I again lived in the pleasures and 
studies of my early youth. Shaping my course through Dijon 
and Besan9on, in the last of which places I was kindly enter- 
tained by my cousin Acton,^ I arrived in the month of May 
1763 on the banks of the Leman Lake. It had been my 
intention to pass the Alps in the autumn, but such are the 
simple attractions of the place, that the year had almost 
expired before my departure from Lausanne in the ensuing 
spring. An absence of five years had not made much altera- 
tion in manners, or even in persons. My old friends, of both 
sexes, hailed my voluntary return ; the most genuine proof of 
my attachment. They had been flattered by the present of 
my book, the produce of their soil ; and the good Pavilliard 
shed tears of joy as he embraced a pupil, whose literary merit 
he might fairly impute to his own labours. To my old list I 
added some new acquaintance, and among the strangers I 
shall distinguish Prince Lewis of Wirtemberg, the brother of 
the reigning Duke,^ at whose country-house, near Lausanne, 
I frequently dined : a wandering meteor, and at length a 
falling star, his light and ambitious spirit had successively 



honnfite et delicat au commerce des femmes marines. Una femme ne peut 
jamais mt^connoitre vos vues, et vous n'aurez point la douleur de vous reprocher 
le malheur d'une jeune personne qui n'est 6t6 trop credule que parcequ'elle vous 
a trop aim^. Monsieur le Mari (je parle des pays Civilises, et la Suisse com- 
mence k I'etre) se sent soulag^ d'une partie du fardeau qu'il ne portoit qn'k 
regret, et ne sait comment t^moigner sa reconnoissance k son bon ami qui veut 
bien rechercher comme un plaisir ce qu'il lui paraissoit un devoir p6nible " 
{Read' s I/isi. Studies, ii., 354).] 

^ {Ante, p. 24 ; Corres. , i. , 37.] 

2 [Voltaire had lent the Duke 80,000 francs, tempted by the high interest. 
Gibbon wrote in 1768 : " The Duke is ruined, the security worth nothing, and 
the money vanished ". Three years earlier Voltaire, announcing the sale of his 
villa, Les Dttices, had written : " J'ai craint de mourir de faim aussi bien que 
de vieillesse ". In 1778, by the intervention of the King of Prussia, he was paid 
back ao.ooo francs {(Euvres de Voltaire, liii. , 38 ; Ixi. , 331 ; Gibbon Corres., i., 
91)-] 



176S] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 155 

dropped from the firmament of Prussia, of France, and of 
Austria ; and his faults, which he styled his misfortunes, had 
driven him into philosophic exile in the Pays de Vaud. He 
could now moralize on the vanity of the world, the equality of 
mankind, and the happiness of a private station. His address 
was affable and polite, and as he had shone in courts and 
armies, his memory could supply, and his eloquence could 
adorn, a copious fund of interesting anecdotes. His first 
enthusiasm was that of charity and agriculture ; but the sage 
gradually lapsed in the saint, and Prince Lewis of Wirtemberg 
is now buried in a hermitage near Mayence, in the last stage 
of mystic devotion.^ By some ecclesiastical quarrel, Voltaire 
had been provoked to withdraw himself from Lausanne, and 
retire to his castle at Ferney,^ where I again visited the poet 
and the actor, without seeking his more intimate acquaintance, 
to which I might now have pleaded a better title. But the 
theatre which he had founded, the actors whom he had 
formed, survived the loss of their master ^ ; and, recent from 
Paris, I attended with pleasure at the representation of 
several tragedies and comedies. I shall not descend to 
specify particular names and characters ; but I cannot forget 
a private institution, which will display the innocent freedom 



1 [Gibbon recorded of him : " Je vois qu'il n'a point Torgueil d'un prince 
Allemand, et I'indignation qu'il faisait paraltre contra un de ses ancetres, qui 
avait voulu vendre un village pour acheter un cheval, me fait esp^rer qu'il n'en 
a pas la duret^. Je croirais assez qu'il a toujours un peu manqu^ de prudence 
et de conduite ; des projets aussi ambitieux que chim^riques dont on 1' accuse, 
sa vie ambulante, ses querelles avec son frfere, ses dissipations, sa disgrace k 
la cour de Vienne ; tout contribue i m'en persuader" (Misc. Works, i. , i66). 
Gibbon adds in a footnote : " V. Le Testament Politique du Marichal de Belle- 
isle. Ouvrage digne d'un laquais, mais d'un laquais de ministre, qui a entendu 
beaucoup d'anecdotes curieuses. " Voltaire wrote to the Prince in 1756 : " Un 
vieux malade, retire sur les bords d'un lac, n'est plus fait pour entretenir 
un jeune prince guerrier, quelque philosophe que soit ce prince " (CEuvres de 
Voltaire, Iviii., ii., 31 ; see also ib. for his letters to Voltaire).] 

2 [" II habita d'abord alternativement Monrion, sur le territoire de Lausanne, 
et les Ddices, sur celui de Geneve (1755-57) ; mais, au bout de quelques anntes 
(1758), se trouvant trop pres des tracasseries tant politiques que religieuses de la 
r^publique genevoise, il fit acquisition de Toruney et de Ferney, deux terres du 
pays de Gex, entre lesquelles il se partageait. II finit par se fixer k Ferney " 
(Biog. Univ., xlix., 479).] 

^{Ante, p. 104.] 



156 EDWAED GIBBON [1763-64 

of Swiss manners.^ My favourite society had assumed, from 
the age of its members, the proud denomination of the spring 
{la society du jjriniems).'^ It consisted of fifteen or twenty 
young unmarried ladies, of genteel, though not of the very 
first families ; the eldest perhaps about twenty, all agreeable, 
several handsome, and two or three of exquisite beauty. At 
each other's houses they assembled almost every day, without 
the controul, or even the presence, of a mother or an aunt ; 
they were trusted to their own prudence, among a crowd of 
young men of every nation of Europe. They laughed, they 
sung, they danced, they played at cards, they acted comedies ; 
but in the midst of this careless gaiety, they respected them- 
selves, and were respected by the men ; the invisible line 
between liberty and licentiousness was never transgressed by 
a gesture, a word, or a look, and their virgin chastity was 
never sullied by the breath of scandal or suspicion : a singular 
institution, expressive of the innocent simplicity of Swiss 
manners. After having tasted the luxury of England and 
Paris, I could not have returned with satisfaction to the coarse 
and homely table of Madame Pavilliard ^ ; nor was her husband 
offended that I now entered myself as a i^emioniiaire, or boarder, 
in the elegant house of Mr. De Mesery, which may be entitled 
to a short remembrance, as it has stood above twenty years, 
perhaps, without a parallel in Europe. The house in which 
we lodged was spacious and convenient, in the best street, and 
commanding, from behind, a noble prospect over the country 
and the Lake. Our table was served with neatness and 
plenty ; the boarders were select * ; we had the liberty of 
inviting any guests at a stated price ; and in the summer the 
scene was occasionally transferred to a pleasant villa, about a 

1 [" Lausanne, Avril 17, 1764. Les femmes sont jolies, et malgr6 leui* 
grande liberty, elles sont tr^s sages. Tout au plus peuvent-elles ^tre un peu 
complaisantes, dans I'id^e honnSte, mais incertaine, de prendre un Stranger 
dans leurs filets" (Misc. Works, i. , 178).] 

2 [General Read found the rules of the society in the garrets of La Grotte 
[Hist. Studies, ii., 326).] 

°{Anie, pp. 84, 117.] 

■^ [Gibbon had written, " the boarders were numerous " [Auto. , p. 208). Lord 
Sheffield made them " select ".] 



1763-64] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 157 

league from Lausanne. The characters of Master and Mistress 
were happily suited to each other, and to their situation. At 
the age of seventy-five, Madame de Mesery, who has survived 
her husband, is still a graceful, I had almost said, a handsome 
woman. She was alike qualified to preside in her kitchen and 
her drawing-room ; and such was the equal propriety of her 
conduct, that of two or three hundred foreigners, none ever 
failed in respect, none could complain of her neglect, and 
none could ever boast of her favour. Mesery himself, of the 
noble family of De Crousaz,i was a man of the world, a jovial 
companion, whose easy manners and natural sallies maintained 
the cheerfulness of his house. His wit could laugh at his own 
ignorance : he disguised, by an air of profusion, a strict atten- 
tion to his interest ; and in this situation he appeared like a 
nobleman who spent his fortune and entertained his friends. ^ 
In this agreeable society I resided nearly eleven months (May 
1763 — April 1764) ; and in this second visit to Lausanne, 
among a crowd of my English companions, I knew and 
esteemed Mr. Holroyd (now Lord Sheffield) ; and our mutual 
attachment was renewed and fortified in the subsequent stages 
of our Italian journey.^ Our lives are in the power of chance, 
and a slight variation on either side, in time or place, might 
have deprived me of a friend, whose activity in the ardour 
of youth was always prompted by a benevolent heart,* and 
directed by a strong understanding. 

If my studies at Paris had been confined to the study of 
the world, three or four months would not have been un- 



^[Ante, p. 87. Gibbon, writing to Lord Sheffield from Lausanne in 1787, 
about " a novel entitled Caroline de Lichfield," continues : " The author, who 
is since married a second time (Madame de Crousaz, now Montolieu), is a 
charming woman. I was in some danger " [Corres. , ii. , 154 ; post, Appendix 66).] 

2 [" La maison de M. de Misery est charmante ; le caractere franc at 
g6n6reux du mari, les agr6mens de la femme, une situation d61icieuse, une 
chere excellente, la compagnie de ses compatriotes, et une liberty parfaite, 
font aimer ce sejour k tout Anglais. Que je voudrais en trouver un semblable 
k Londres !" {Alisc. Works, i. , 178.)] 

3 [" Lausanne, Avril 6, 1764. J'ai conju une veritable amiti6 pour Holroyd. 
II a beaucoup de raison et des sentimens d'honneur, avec un cceur des mieux 
places {ib., i., 176).] 

4 [He was a strong upholder of the slave trade (post, Appendix 54).] 



158 EDWARD GIBBON [1763-64 

profitably spent. My visits, however superficial, to the 
Academy of Medals ^ and the public libraries, opened a new 
field of inquiry ; and the view of so many manuscripts of 
different ages and characters induced me to consult the two 
great Benedictine works, the Diplomatica of Mabillon,^ and 
the Palceographia of Montfaucon.^ I studied the theory with- 
out attaining the practice of the art : nor should I complain 
of the intricacy of Greek abbreviations and Gothic alphabets, 
since every day, in a familiar language, I am at a loss to 
decipher the hieroglyphics of a female note. In a tranquil 
scene, which revived the memory of my first studies, idleness 
would have been less pardonable : the public libraries of 
Lausanne and Geneva liberally supplied me with books ; and 
if many hours were lost in dissipation,* many more were 
employed in literary labour. In the country, Horace and 
Virgil, Juvenal and Ovid, were my assiduous companions : but, 
in town, I formed and executed a plan of study for the use 
of my Transalpine expedition : the topography of old Rome, 
the ancient geography of Italy, and the science of medals. 
1. I diligently read, almost always with my pen in my hand, 
the elaborate treatises of Nardini, Donatus, etc., which fill 
the fourth volume of the Roman Antiquities, of Graevi us. ^ 2. 
I next undertook and finished the Italia Antiqua of Cluverius, 



1 [" L' Academic des Belles-Lettres, formte d'abord en 1663 de quelques 
membres de I'Acad^mie Fran9aise, pour transmettre k la post6rit6 par des 
m^dailles les actions de Louis XIV, devint utile au public d^s qu'elle ne fut 
plus uniquement occup^e du monarque, et qu'elle s'appliqua aux recherches de 
I'antiquit^ " etc. (CEuvres de Voltaire, xviii. , 240).] 

2 [" C'est lui qui, ^tant charg6 de montrer le trfeor de Saint-Denis, demanda 
k. quitter cet emploi, farce qu'il n' aitnait pas a meler la fable avec la viritL II 
a fait de profondes recherches " (ib., xvii., 122).] 

^ [" L'un des plus savans antiquaires de I'Europe" {ib., p. 132). "His 
Library of Manuscripts is almost necessary for every man of letters " (Gibbon, 
Misc. Works, v., 344).] 

■^ [" Septembre 21, 1763. Ma reputation baisse ici avec quelque raison." 
" Septembre 25. J'avais une tr^s belle reputation ici pour les mceurs, mais je 
vois qu'on commence k me confondre avec mes compatriotes, et k me regarder 
comme un homme qui aime le vin et le d^sordre " {Misc. Works, i., 170). These 
excesses he attributed partly " to the habits of the militia " {Auto., p. 208). On 
Dec. 18, he recorded that he had lost in gambling " une quarantaine de Louis " 
(Misc. Works, i., 171).] 

s[Seeii., V. ,'313-43.] 



1763-64] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 159 

a learned native of Prussia, who had measured, on foot, every 
spot, and has compiled and digested every passage of the 
ancient writers. These passages in Greek or Latin authors 
I perused in the text of Cluverius, in two folio volumes ^ : 
but I separately read the descriptions of Italy by Strabo,^ 
Pliny, and Pomponius Mela,^ the Catalogues of the Epic 
poets,* the Itineraries of Wesseling's Antoninus,^ and the 
coasting Voyage of Rutilius Numatianus,^ and I studied two 
kindred subjects in the Mesures Itiner aires of D'Anville,'^ and 
the copious work of Bergier, Hisioire des grajids Chemins de 
r Empire Romani.^ From these materials I formed a table of 
roads and distances reduced to our English measure ^ ; filled 
a folio common-place book with my collections and remarks 
on the geography of Italy ^*^ ; and inserted in my journal many 
long and learned notes on the insulae and populousness of 
Rome,ii the social war,i2 the passage of the Alps by Hannibal,!^ 

1 \_Misc. Works, v. , 356-427 ; 429-431. " Cluverius," he writes, " is too diffuse. 
. . . Our men of letters are afraid to encounter two volumes in folio " (ib. , p. 429).] 

2 [Ante, p. 142.] 

3 [Johnson, when in 1763 he accompanied Boswell to Harwich, " had in his 
pocket Pomponius Mela de Situ Orbis, in which he read occasionally, and 
seemed very intent upon ancient geography " (Boswell's Johnson, i. , 465).] 

4 [Gibbon in two papers examined these catalogues (Misc. Works, iv. , 327- 
33S)-] 

»[/3., v., 293.] 

6 [7/5., v., 435-442. Gibbon, censuring Rutilius's "swelling words," con- 
tinues : " I doubt whether Bellerophonteis sollicitudinibus be ever quoted, except 
on account of the singularity that two words should compose a pentameter 
verse" {ib., p. 440). In The Decline {ul, 234) he translates his description of 
the monks of the Island of Capraria.] 

■^ [" The master hand of the first of geographers," writes Gibbon of D'Anville 
[The Decline, v., 450). In another passage he says that " even that ingenious 
geographer is too fond of supposing new, and perhaps imaginary measures, 
for the purpose of rendering ancient writers as accurate as himself " (ib. , ii. , 145), 
D'Anville undertook "four maps of Roman geography of a size and nature 
suited to the History [ The Decline\" but he never executed them (Misc. Works, 
ii. , 201).] 

8 [Printed in 1622 (CEuvres de Voltaire, xvii. , 49). Gibbon speaks of " una 
infinite de digressions aussi belles que savantes dont M. Bergier a rempli son 
histoire " (Misc. Works, iv., 324).] 

8 [" March 29, 1764. I wrote two pages on the Itineraries and high Roads of 
the Romans ; and stop short at present with a rich fund of ninety-two folio 
pages closely written" (ib., v., 475).] 

10 \Ib., iv. , 155-326.] 11 \Ib., v„ 317.] 

12 [/<5., v., 389.] 13[/^., v.. 370.] 



160 EDWARD GIBBON [1764-65 

etc. S. After glancing my eye over Addison's agreeable 
dialogues, 1 I more seriously read the great work of Ezechiel 
Spanheim de Prcestantia et Usu Numismatum,^ and applied 
with him the medals of the kings and emperors, the families 
and colonies, to the illustration of the ancient history. And 
thus was I armed for my Italian journey.^ 

1 shall advance with rapid brevity in the narrative of this 
tour, in which somewhat more than a year (April 1764- to 
May 1765) was agreeably employed. Content with tracing 
my line of march^ and slightly touching on my personal feel- 
ings, I shall waive the minute investigation of the scenes 
which have been viewed by thousands, and described by 
hundreds of our modern travellers. Rome is the great object 
of our pilgrimage : and 1st, the journey ; 2nd, the residence ; 
and 3rd, the return, will form the most proper and perspicuous 
division. 1 . I climbed Mount Cenis, and descended into the 
plain of Piedmont, not on the back of an elephant, but on a 
light osier seat, in the hands of the dextrous and intrepid 
chairmen of the Alps.* The architecture and government of 

'^[Dialogues on Medals (Addison's Woi-ks, ed. 1862, i. , 255). It was not 
published till after the author's death [ib., p. 337). " He dwells on the striking 
connection between the reverses of medals and the descriptions of Latin poets. 
. . . The passages of the poets are selected with taste ; and the author's 
reflections are replete with judgment and sagacity" (Gibbon, A4isc. Works, v., 
455)0 

2 [" April 12, 1764. I re-examined Spanheim's work, which is a real treasury 
of medallic erudition, a classic book on this science " {ib. , v. , 482). Spanheim 
gave Bentley his portrait, who bequeathed it to Trinity College, Cambridge 
(Monk's Bentley, ii. , 442).] 

•^ [" Lausanne, Avril 17, 1764. Je quitte Lausanne avec moins de regret 
que la premiere fois. . . . Je voyais Lausanne avec les yeux encore novices d'un 
jeune homme, qui lui devait la partie raisonnable de son existence, et qui jugeait 
sans objets de comparaison. Aujourd'hui j'y vois une ville mal Mtie, au milieu 
d'un pays d^licieux, qui jouit de la paix et du repos, et qui les prend pour la 
liberty" {Misc. Works, \., 178).] 

* [Gray and Horace Walpole crossed Mont Cenis early in November, 1739. 
"At Lanebourg we were wrapt up in our furs, and seated upon a sort of matted 
chair without legs, which is carried upon poles in the manner of a bier, and so 
began to ascend by the help of eight men. It was six miles to the top, where 
a plain opens itself about as many more in breadth. . . . The descent is six 
more, but infinitely more steep than the going up ; and here the men perfectly 
fly down with you. . . . We were but five hours in performing the whole" 
(Mitford's Gray, ii., 67). " So, as the song says, we are in fair Italy ! I wonder 
we are ; for on the very highest precipice of Mount Cenis, the devil of discord, 
in the similitude of sour wine, had got amongst our Alpine savages, and set 



1764-65] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 161 

Turin presented the same aspect of tame and tiresome uni- 
formity : but the court was regulated with decent and splendid 
ceconomy ^ ; and I was introduced to his Sardinian majesty 
Charles Emanuel, ^ who, after the incomparable Frederick, 
held the second rank (proximus longo tamen intervallo ^) 
among the kings of Europe.* The size and populousness of 
Milan could not surprise an inhabitant of London : but the 
fancy is amused by a visit to the Boromean Islands, an en- 
chanted palace, a work of the fairies in the midst of a lake 
encomipassed with mountains, and far removed from the 
haunts of men.^ I was less amused by the marble palaces of 
Genoa, than by the recent memorials of her deliverance (in 

them a-fighting, with Gray and me in the chairs ; they rushed him by me on 
a crag, where there was scarce room for a cloven foot. The least slip had 
tumbled us into such a fog, and such an eternity as we should never have found 
our way out of again. . . . We had twelve men and nine mules to carry us, 
our servants, and baggage." The day before, "in broad sunshine," Walpole's 
little dog had been carried off by a wolf (Walpole's Letters, i. , 28).] 

1 [The day before he was presented at Court he wrote : " Everything follows 
the example of the Court, which from one of the most polite in Europe is be- 
come bigoted, gloomy and covetous" (Corres., i. , 56). 

Twenty-five years earlier Horace Walpole had written : ' ' 'Tis really by 
far one of the prettiest cities I have seen ; not one of your large straggling ones 
that can afford to have twenty dirty suburbs, but clean and compact, very new 
and very regular. The King's palace is not of the proudest without, but of the 
richest within ; painted, gilt, looking-glassed, very costly, but very tawdry ; in 
short a very popular palace" (Walpole's Letters, i. , 29). 

In Tke Decline (iv. , 501) Gibbon, speaking of "the barbarous practice of 
wearing arms in the midst of peace," continues : "The historian who considers 
this circumstance as the test of civilization would disdain the barbarism of an 
European Court ".] 

2[" The most sociable women I have met with are the King's daughters. I 
chatted for about a quarter of an hour with them, talked about Lausanne, and 
grew so very free and easy that I drew my snuff-box, rapped it, took snuff twice 
(a crime never known before in the presence-chamber), and continued my dis- 
course in my usual attitude, of my body bent forwards, and my fore-finger 
stretched out" [Co7-res., i., 58).] 

•^[" Proximus huic, longo sed proximus intervallo." 

(Virgil, ySneid, v., 320.) 

" The next, but though the next, yet far disjoined." 

(Dryden.)] 

4 [Voltaire thus describes Charles Emanuel {CEuvres, xix., 426) : "On avait 
a redouter en lui un politique et un guerrier ; un prince qui savait bien choisir 
ses ministres et ses g^n^raux, et qui pouvait se passer d'eux, grand g^n^ral lui- 
meme et grand ministre".] 

5 [Gibbon improves on the description he gave of these islands in a letter — 
" which, by the help of some imagination, we conclude to be a very delightful, 
though not an enchanted place" [Corres., i., 60).] 
11 



162 EDWARD GIBBON [1764-65 

December 1746) from the Austrian tyranny; and I took a 
military survey of every scene of action within the enclosure 
of her double walls.^ My steps were detained at Parma and 
Modena, by the precious relics of the Farnese and Este 
collections : but, alas ! the far greater part had -^been already 
transported, by inheritance or purchase, to Naples and 
Dresden. By the road of Bologna and the Apennine I at 
last reached Florence, where I reposed from June to 
September, during the heat of the summer months. In the 
Gallery, and especially in the Tribune,^ I first acknowledged, 
at the feet of the Venus of Medicis, that the chisel may dis- 
pute the pre-eminence with the pencil, a truth in the fine 
arts which cannot on this side of the Alps be felt or under- 
stood.^ At home I had taken some lessons of Italian : on 
the spot I read, with a learned native, the classics of the 
Tuscan idiom : but the shortness of my time, and the use of 
the French language prevented my acquiring any facility of 
speaking ; and I was a silent spectator in the conversations of 
our envoy, Sir Horace Mann, whose most serious business was 
that of entertaining the English at his hospitable table.* After 
leaving Florence I compared the solitude of Pisa with the 



1 [The Austrians, supported by the Piedmontese and a squadron of English 
ships, took Genoa on Sept. 7, 1746. In December, the people, exasperated by 
their harsh treatment, rose in a riot and drove them out. " L' Europe vit avec 
surprise qu'un peuple faible, nourri loin des armes, et qui ni son enceinte de 
rochers, ni les rois de France, d'Espagne, de Naples, n'avaient pu sauver du 
joug des Autrichiens, I'eut bris6 sans aucun secours, et eut chass6 ses vainqueurs " 
((Euvres de Voltaire, xix. , 164, 168-72). 

Gibbon recorded in his journal how the people formed " un conseil qu'on 
appellait Assemble du Peuple. . . . Elle rendait ses ordonnances sous peine de 
la vie, et tenait son bourreau assis sur les degr^s d'une 6glise, et pres d'une 
potence pour les faire ex^cuter" {Misc. Works, i., 181).] 

2 [The Tribune, or Tribuna, is part of the Galleria degli Uffizi.] 

3 [Gibbon recorded in his journal an interesting criticism of many of the 
Roman husts (Misc. Wo?'ks, i. , 186-91), which might well be included in the 
Guide Books to Florence.] 

* [Gibbon recorded on July 29: "Toute la nation dlna chez M. Mann" 
[Misc. Works, i., 191). 

Gray described Mann in 1739 as ' ' the best and most obliging person in the 
world" (Mitford's Gi^ay, ii., 79). Horace Walpole, on his way home, began at 
Calais, in September, 1741, a correspondence with him, which he kept up till 
Mann's death in 1786. During this long period they never met (Walpole's 
Letters, i., 71 ; ix., 59).] 



1764-65] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 163 

industry of Lucca and Leghorn, and continued my journey 
through Sienna to Rome^ where I arrived in the beginning of 
October. 2. My temper is not very susceptible of enthu- 
siasm ^ ; and the enthusiasm which I do not feel, I have ever 
scorned to affect. But, at the distance of twenty-five years, 
I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which 
agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal 
dty? After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step, the 
ruins of the Forum ^ ; each memorable spot where Romulus 
siood,'^ or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to 
my eye ^ ; and several days of intoxication were lost or en- 
joyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investiga- 
tion.^ My guide was Mr. Byers, a Scotch antiquary of 
experience and taste "^ ; but, in the daily labour of eighteen 
weeks, the powers of attention were sometimes fatigued, till 
I was myself qualified, in a last review, to select and study 
the capital works of ancient and modern art. Six weeks were 
borrowed for my tour of Naples, the most populous of 



1 [For the sense in which this word was generally used see ante, pp. 22, 7i. 2, 
147. Here Gibbon uses it in the sense which it bears now — defined by Johnson 
as, " elevation of fancy ; exaltation of ideas".] 

2[" Romulus /Eternae nondum formaverat Urbis 
McKnia, consorti non habitanda Remo." 

(Tibullus, ii., 5, 23.)] 

s [Gibbon, describing how " amidst the ruins of his country Leo IV. stood 
erect, like one of the firm and lofty columns that rear their heads above the 
fragments of the Roman Forum," adds in a note : " I have borrowed Voltaire's 
general expression, but the sight of the Forum has furnished me with a more 
distinct and lively image" [Tke Decline, vi., 41).] 

* [Gibbon refers, I think, to Livy, i., 12, where Romulus, hurried along by 
his fleeing soldiers, vowed a temple to Jupiter Stator, if the god would stop the 
flight] 

5[" To the eye of liberal enthusiasm the majesty of ruin restored the image 
of her ancient prosperity" {The Decline, vii., 132). 

Gray wrote from Rome in 1740 : ' ' Mr. Walpole says our memory sees more 
than our eyes in this country. Which is extremely true" (Mitford's Gray, ii., 
III).] 

^[Gibbon, a day or two after his arrival, wrote: "I am convinced there 
never, never existed such a nation, and I hope for the happiness of mankind 
there never will again" {Corres., i., 67).] 

''[James Byers or Byres. Bishop Percy in 1791 described him as "the 
Pope's Antiquary at Rome" (Nichols's lllus. of Lit., vii., 719. See also ib., iii. , 
726). He at one^'time owned the Portland Vase, but he sold it to Sir William 
Hamilton {Diet, of Nat. Biog.).'\ 



164 EDWARD GIBBON [1764-65 

cities/ relative to its size, whose luxurious inhabitants seem to 
dwell on the confines of paradise and hell-fire. I was presented 
to the boy-king ^ by our new envoy. Sir William Hamilton ^ ; 
who, wisely diverting his correspondence from the Secretary 
of State to the Royal Society and British Museum, has 
elucidated a country of such inestimable value to the 
naturalist and antiquarian. On my return, I fondly em- 
braced, for the last time, the miracles of Rome ; but I de- 
parted without kissing the feet of Rezzonico (Clement XIII.*), 
who neither possessed the wit of his predecessor Lambertini,^ 
nor the virtues of his successor Ganganelli.*' 3. In my 

1 [Gray wrote from Naples : ' ' My wonder still increased upon entering the 
city, which I think for number of people outdoes both Paris and London" 
(Mitford's Gray, ii., 114). "That city, the third in Christian Europe, contains 
more inhabitants (350,000) in a given space than any other spot in the known 
world" {The Decline, iv. , 308).] 

2 [Ferdinand IV. of Naples, afterwards styled Ferdinand I. of the United 
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, born in 1751, died in 1825, after experiencing 
great alternations of fortune (see the Penny Cyclopcedia, x., 230). Five years 
after his death his daughter, who had married the Duke of Orleans, became 
Queen of France. Horace Walpole wrote on Dec. 14, 1767, to Sir Horace 
Mann {Letters, v., 76) : "So your King of Naples is a madman or an idiot ! 
And they set aside his eldest brother on the same pretence, to make room for 
him ! "] 

3 [Horace Walpole wrote to Mann on June 8, 1764 {Letters, iv., 249) : " You 
have a new neighbour coming to you, Mr. William Hamilton. . . . He is 
picture-mad, and will ruin himself in virtu-land. His wife is as musical as he 
is connoisseur, but she is dying of an asthma." His second wife became Lord 
Nelson's mistress. Lord Holland {Memoirs, ii. , 22) describes him as " a man of 
mean capacity, but of some cunning and experience".] 

*[" Epitaphe du Pape Clement XIH : — 

" Ci-git des vrais croyans le mufti tdm^raire, 
Et de tous les Bourbons I'ennemi d^clar^ : 
De J^sus sur la terre il s'est dit le vicaire ; 
Je le crois aujourd'hui mal avec son curd" 

( CEuvres de Voltaire, xii. , 364. ) 
Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son in 1749 : " Remember to be presented to 
the Pope before you leave Rome, and go through the necessary ceremonies for 
it, whether of kissing his slipper or . . ." {Letters to his Son, ii. , 222).] 

5 [Benedict XIV. Horace Walpole wrote of him to Mann on Nov. 29, 1756 : 
' ' I have always had a great partiality for the good old man : I desire you will 
tell me any anecdotes or stories of him that you know : I remember some of his 
sayings with great humour and wit" {Letters, iii. , 49). See also ib., p. 84, for 
an inscription Walpole wrote behind a bas-relief of the Pope.] 

6 [Clement XIV. ' ' II 6tait r6put6 tres sage et tres circonspect, au-dessus des 
prt^jug^s nionastiques, et capable de soutenir par sa sagesse le colosse du 
pontifical, qui semblait menac6 de sa chute. C'est lui qui a enfin aboli la 
Soci^t^ de J&us par sa bulle de I'ann^e 1773" {CEuvres de Voltaire, xix., 861).] 



1764-65] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 165 

pilgrimage from Rome to Loretto I again crossed the 
Apennine ; from the coast of the Adriatic I traversed a 
fruitful and populous country, which could alone disprove 
the paradox of Montesquieu, that modern Italy is a desert.^ 
Without adopting the exclusive prejudice of the natives I 
sincerely admire the paintings of the Bologna school. ^ I 
hastened to escape from the sad solitude of Ferrara, which in 
the age of Caesar was still more desolate.^ The spectacle of 



1 [Montesquieu in Lettres persanes, No. 113, wrote of Italy : " Quoique tout 
le monde habite les villes, elles sont entiferement d&ertes et d^peupl^es". He 
adds : " Apres un calcul aussi exact qu'il peut I'etre dans ces sortes de choses, 
j'ai trouv6 qu'il y a i peine sur la terre la dixifeme partie des hommes qui y 
6taient de temps de C6sar ". 

Goldsmith upheld this paradox when, injihis Traveller {}. 133), he said of the 
Italians : — 

" For wealth was theirs, not far remov'd the date, 
When commerce proudly flourish' d through the state. 



Till, more unsteady than the southern gale, 
Commerce on other shores display'd her sail ; 
While nought remain'd of all that riches gave. 
But towns unmann'd, and lords without a slave."] 

'^ [It was Horace Walpole's " favourite school " [Letters, ix., 465). Reynolds, 
describing this school, " of which the first stone was laid by Pellegrino Tibaldi," 
but which was built by the Caracci, continues: "But the divine part, which 
addresses itself to the imagination, as possessed by Michael Angelo or Tibaldi, 
was beyond their grasp ; they formed, however, a most respectable school, a 
style more on the level, and calculated to please a greater number; and if 
excellence of this kind is to be valued according to the number, rather than the 
weight and quality of admirers, it would assume even a higher rank in art" 
(Reynolds's Works, ed. 1824, ii. , 150). 

' ' There is no doubt that the Bolognese painters sufficed for the eighteenth 
century, whose taste indeed they had created. There is equally no doubt that 
for the nineteenth they are insufficient " (Symonds's Renaissance in Italy, ed. 
1898, vii., 231). 

We may wonder whether at Bologna Gibbon ate sausages. ' ' The famous 
Bologna sausages," he writes, " are said to be made of ass flesh " ( The Decli7te, 
iv., 320). " You may advise me," said Johnson, " to go to live at Bologna to 
eat sausages. The sausages there are the best in the world ; they lose much by 
being carried " [^os^NeWs Johnsofi, ii. , 195).] 

2[" In the time of Augustus, and in the middle ages, the whole waste from 
Aquileia to Ravenna was covered with woods, lakes and morasses " ( The Decline, 
iv. , 413). An ingenious commentator might have thought that Gibbon referred 
to Don Caesar, the last of the House of Este who ruled Ferrara. He was de- 
prived of it, writes Gibbon, by "the ambition and avarice" of Rome. "On 
January 28, 1598, he evacuated a city in which his ancestors had reigned near 
four hundred years. . . . Ferrara was left to the solitude and poverty of a 
provincial town, under the government of priests . . . and within seventeen 
years after the death of Alphonso II. [1597] a fourth of his capital was already 
in ruins" {Misc. Works, iii., 462).] 



166 EDWARD GIBBON [1764-65 

Venice afforded some hours of astonishment ^ ; the university 
of Padua is a dying taper ^ : but Verona still boasts her 
amphitheatre^ and his native Vicenza is adorned by the 
classic architecture of Palladio ^ : the road of Lombardy and 
Piedmont (did Montesquieu find them without inhabitants ?) 
led me back to Milan, Turin, and the passage of Mount Cenis, 
where I again crossed the Alps in my way to Lyons. 

The use of foreign travel has been often debated as a 
general question ; but the conclusion must be finally applied 
to the character and circumstances of each individual. With 
the education of boys, where or how they may pass over some 
juvenile years with the least mischief to themselves or others, 
I have no concern.'* But after supposing the previous 

1 [For a curious omission in the original see A uto. , p. 268. From Venice he 
wrote : "Of all the towns in Italy I am the least satisfied with Venice ; objects 
which are only singular without being pleasing produce a momentary surprise, 
which soon gives way to satiety and disgust" (Corres, i., 75). " The republic 
of Venice has deserved the least from the gratitude of scholars " { TAe Decline, 
vii., 128).] 

2 [Evelyn [Diary, ed. 1872, i., 217), who visited it in 1645, described it as 
"this flourishing and ancient University". Addison ( I'For.^j', i. , 385), nearly 
sixty years later, wrote of it : " The university is of late much more regular than 
it was formerly, though it is not yet safe walking the streets after sunset ". 
Johnson, in his undergraduate days, was overheard saying to himself: " Well, 
I have a mind to see what is done in other places of learning. I'll go and visit 
the Universities abroad. I'll go to France and Italy. I'll go to Padua. — And 
I'll mind my business. For an Athenian blockhead is the worst of all block- 
heads " (Boswell's Johtison, i. , 73).] 

3[" Vicenza is a city . . . full of gentlemen and splendid palaces, to which 
the famous Palladio, born here, has exceedingly contributed, having been the 
architect" (Evelyn's Diary, i. , 227).] 

4 [Milton in his tractate Of Education [Works, ed. 1806, i., 284) says: 
" Nor shall we then need the monsieurs of Paris to take our hopeful youth into 
their slight and prodigal custodies, and send them over back again transformed 
into mimics, apes, and kickshows ". 

Gay's moral in The Monkey who had seen the World [Fables, No. xiv.) is : — 
" Thus the dull lad, too tall for school. 
With travel finishes the fool ". 

Pope, in the Argument of the fourth Dunciad, brings in " a band of young 
gentlemen returned from travel with their tutors ; one of whom delivers to the 
goddess in a polite oration an account of the whole conduct and fruits of their 
travels ; presenting to her at the same time a young nobleman perfectly ac- 
complished. She receives him graciously, and indues him with the happy 
quality of want of shame." 

Fielding in Joseph Andrews (bk. iii. , chap, vii.) describes how the squire 
" made in three years the tour of Europe, as they term it, and returned home 
well furnished with French clothes, phrases and servants, with a hearty con- 
tempt for his own country ; especially what had any savour of the plain spirit 
and honesty of our ancestors ". 



1764-65] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 167 

and indispensable requisites of age, judgment, a competent 
knowledge of men and books/ and a freedom from domestic 
prejudices, I will briefly describe the qualifications which I 
deem most essential to a traveller. He should be endowed 
with an active, indefatigable vigour of mind and body, which 
can seize every mode of conveyance, and support, with a 
careless smile, every hardship of the road, the weather, or 
the inn. The benefits of foreign travel will correspond with 
the degrees of these qualifications ^ ; but, in this sketch, 
those to whom I am known will not accuse me of framing 
my own panegyric. It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 
1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while 
the bare- footed fryars were singing vespers in the Temple of 
Jupiter,^ that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the 
city first started to my mind.'* But my original plan was 
circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the 
empire,^ and though my reading and reflections began to 
point towards that object, some years elapsed, and several 
avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the 
execution of that laborious work. 

I had not totally renounced the southern provinces of 
France, but the letters which I found at Lyons were ex- 
Chesterfield thus writes of young travellers : ' ' They set out upon their travels 
unlicked cubs ; and in their travels they only lick one another, for they seldom 
go into any other company. . . . They come home, at three or four and 
twenty, refined and polished (as is said in one of Congreve's plays) like Dutch 
skippers from a whale-fishing " {Letters to his Son, ed. 1774, iv., 18). 

"A young man," writes Adam Smith, "commonly returns home more 
conceited, more unprincipled, more dissipated, and more incapable of any 
serious application, either to study or to business, than he could well have become 
in so short a time had he lived at home " ( The Wealth of Naiio?is, bk. v. , chap. i. , 
ed. 1811, iii., 184. See also ante, p. 148, and Boswell's /o/%«w;«, iii., 458).] 

1 [" Johnson. As the Spanish proverb says, ' He, who would bring home 
the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.' So it 
is in travelling ; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring 
home knowledge ' " (Boswell's Johnson, iii., 302).] 

2 [See Auto., p. 269, for many more " qualifications ".] 

^ [" The Church and Convent of Araceli, the bare-foot friars of St. Francis, 
occupy the Temple of Jupiter " ( The Decline, vii. , 226).] 

■* [See Appendix 29. ] 

' [" If I prosecute this History, I shall not be unmindful of the decline and 
fall of the city of Rome ; an interesting object, to which my plan was originally 
confined" [The Decline, iv., 20).] 



168 EDWARD GIBBON [i765 

pressive of some impatience. Rome and Italy had satiated 
my curious appetite^ and I was now ready to return to the 
peaceful retreat of my family and books. After a happy 
fortnight I reluctantly left Paris, embarked at Calais, again 
landed at Dover, after an interval of two years and five 
monthsj and hastily drove through the summer dust and 
solitude of London. On the 25th of June^ 1765, I arrived 
at my father's house : and ^ the five years and a half between 
my travels and my father's death (1770) are the portion of 
my life which I passed with the least enjoyment^ and which 
I remember with the least satisfaction. ^ Every spring I 
attended the monthly meeting and exercise of the militia at 
Southampton ; and by the resignation of my father, and the 
death of Sir Thomas Worsley,^ I was successively promoted to 
the rank of major and lieutenant-colonel commandant ; but I 
was each year more disgusted with the inn, the wine, the com- 
pany, and the tiresome repetition of annual attendance and daily 
exercise. At home, the economy of the family and farm still 
maintained the same creditable appearance. My connection 
with Mrs. Gibbon was mellowed into a warm and solid attach- 
ment : my growing years abolished the distance that might yet 
remain between a parent and a son, and my behaviour satisfied 
my father, who was proud of the success, however imperfect 
in his own life-time, of my literary talents. Our solitude 
was soon and often enlivened by the visit of the friend of 
my youth, Mr. Deyverdun,^ whose absence from Lausanne I 
had sincerely lamented. About three years after my first 
departure, he had emigrated from his native lake to the 
banks of the Oder in Germany. The res angusta domi,^ the 
waste of a decent patrimony, by an improvident father, 
obliged him, like many of his countrymen, to confide in his 

1 [The connection of the two clauses, which is so imperfect, was quite clear 
in the original. Gibbon wrote : "On the 2Sth of June, 1765, I reached the 
rural mansion of my parents. . . . After my first (1758) and my second return 
to England (1765), the forms of the pictures were nearly the same ; but the 
colours had been darkened by time ; and the five years, etc. " {Auto., p. 271).] 

2 [He surely forgets his " boyish years " {ante, p. 46).] 
•^\_Ante, p. 136.] *[/<J., p. 86.] 
5 [Juvenal, Sat., iii., 165.] 



1765] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 169 

own industry ; and he was entrusted with the education of a 
young prince, the grandson of the Margrave of Schavedt, 
of the Royal Family of Prussia. Our friendship was never 
cooled, our correspondence was sometimes interrupted ; but I 
rather wished than hoped to obtain Mr. Deyverdun for the 
companion of my Italian tour. An unhappy, though honour- 
able, passion drove him from his German court ; and the 
attractions of hope and curiosity were fortified by the ex- 
pectation of my speedy return to England. During four 
successive summers he passed several weeks or months at 
Buriton, and our free conversations, on every topic that could 
interest the heart or understanding, would have reconciled 
me to a desert or a prison. In the winter months of London 
my sphere of knowledge and action was somewhat enlarged, 
by the many new acquaintance which I had contracted in the 
militia and abroad ; and I must regret, as more than an ac- 
quaintance, Mr. Godfrey Clarke of Derbyshire, an amiable and 
worthy young man, who was snatched away by an untimely 
death. 1 A weekly convivial meeting was established by 
myself and travellers, under the name of the Roman Club.^ 

The renewal, or perhaps the improvement, of my English 
life was embittered by the alteration of my own feelings. At 
the age of twenty-one I was, in my proper station of a youth, 
delivered from the yoke of education, and delighted with the 
comparative state of liberty and affluence. My filial obedience 
was natural and easy ; and in the gay prospect of futurity, my 



1 [He was one of the members for Derbyshire. He died on Dec. 26, 1774 
(Gent. Mag., 1774, p. 599). On Aug. 7, 1773, Gibbon wrote to Holroyd : 
' ' Boodle's and Atwood's are now no more. The last stragglers, and Clarke 
in the rear of all, are moved away to their several castles ; and I now enjoy 
in the midst of London a delicious solitude. My library, Kensington Gardens, 
and a few parties with new acquaintance who are chained to London (among 
whom I reckon Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds) fill up my time " [Carres., 
i., 191).] 

2 The members were Lord Mountstuart (now Marquis of Bute), Colonel 
Edmonstone, William Weddal, Rev. Mr. Palgrave, Earl of Berkley, Godfrey 
Clarke (Member for Derbyshire), Holroyd (Lord Sheffield), Major Ridley, 
Thomas Charles Bigge, Sir William Guize, Sir John Aubrey, the late Earl of 
Abingdon, Hon. Peregrine Bertie, Rev. Mr. Cleaver, Hon. John Darner, Hon. 
George Damer (late Earl of Dorchester), Sir Thomas Gascoyne, Sir John Hort, 
E. Gibbon.— Sheffield, 



170 EDWARD GIBBON [i765 

ambition did not extend beyond the enjoyment of my books, 
my leisure, and my patrimonial estate, undisturbed by the 
cares of a family and the duties of a profession. But in the 
militia I was armed with power ; in my travels, I was exempt 
from controul ; and as I approached, as I gradually passed my 
thirtieth year, I began to feel the desire of being master in 
my own house. The most gentle authority will sometimes 
frown without reason, the most cheerful submission will 
sometimes murmur without cause ; and such is the law of 
our imperfect nature, that we must either command or obey ; 
that our personal liberty is supported by the obsequiousness 
of our own dependants. While so many of my acquaintance 
were married or in parliament, or advancing with a rapid step 
in the various roads of honour and fortune, I stood alone, im- 
moveable and insignificant ; for after the monthly meeting of 
1770,^ I had even withdrawn myself from the militia, by the 
resignation of an empty and barren commission. My temper 
is not susceptible of envy, and the view of successful merit 
has always excited my warmest applause. The miseries of a 
vacant life were never known to a man whose hours were 
insufficient for the inexhaustible pleasures of study. But I 
lamented that at the proper age I had not embraced the 
lucrative pursuits of the law ^ or of trade, the chances of civil 
office or India adventure, or even the fat slumbers of the 
church 3 ; and my repentance became more lively as the loss 
of time was more iri'etrievable. Experience showed me the 
use of grafting my private consequence on the importance of a 
great professional body ; the benefits of those firm connections 
which are cemented by hope and interest, by gratitude and 
emulation, by the mutual exchange of services and favours. 
From the emoluments of a profession I might have derived 
an ample fortune, or a competent income, instead of being 



'^[Pos^, Appendix 24.] ^[Ante, p. 113.] 

3 [Only two or three years before he thus basely lamented, he made the 
following entry in his journal about an Italian author : " II se plaint k tout 
moment de sa pauvret6. II connait peu la veritable dignity d'un homme de 
lettres" [Misc. Works, i. , 192).] 



1765] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 171 

stinted to the same narrow allowance, to be increased only 
by an event which I sincerely deprecated. The progress 
and the knowledge of our domestic disorders aggravated 
my anxiety^ and I began to apprehend that I might be 
left in my old age without the fruits either of industry or in- 
heritance. 

In the first summer after my return, whilst I enjoyed at 
Buriton the society of my friend Deyverdun, our daily con- 
versations expatiated over the field of ancient and modern 
literature ; and we freely discussed my studies, my first Essay, 
and my future projects. The Decline and Fall of Rome I still 
contemplated at an awful distance : but the two historical 
designs which had balanced my choice were submitted to his 
taste : and in the parallel between the Revolutions of Florence 
and Switzerland, our common partiality for a country which 
was his by birth, and mine by adoption, inclined the scale in 
favour of the latter. According to the plan, which was soon 
conceived and digested, I embraced a period of two hundred 
years, from the association of the three peasants of the Alps 
to the plenitude and prosperity of the Helvetic body in the 
sixteenth century. I should have described the deliverance 
and victory of the Swiss, who have never shed the blood of 
their tyrants but in a field of battle ^ ; the laws and manners 
of the confederate states ; the splendid trophies of the 
Austrian, Burgundian, and Italian wars ; and the wisdom of 
a nation, which, after some sallies of martial adventure, has 
been content to guard the blessings of peace with the sword 
of freedom. 

Manus hasc inimica tyrannis 

Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem. 

My judgment, as well as my enthusiasm, was satisfied with 
the glorious theme ; and the assistance of Deyverdun seemed 
to remove an insuperable obstacle. The French or Latin 
memorials, of which I was not ignorant, are inconsiderable in 

i[As Gibbon did not believe in the story of William Tell [Misc. IVorks, 
iii., 265), he was justified in passing over Gessler's death.] 



172 EDWAED GIBBON [i767 

number and weight ; but in the perfect acquaintance of my 
friend with the German language, I found the key of a more 
valuable collection. The most necessary books were procured ; 
he translated for my use, the folio volume of Schilling, a 
copious and contemporary relation of the war of Burgundy ; 
we read and marked the most interesting parts of the great 
chronicle of Tschudi ; and by his labour, or that of an inferior 
assistant^ large extracts were made from the History of Lauffer 
and the Dictionary of Lew : yet such was the distance and 
delay, that two years elapsed in these preparatory steps ; and 
it was late in the third summer (1767) before I entered, with 
these slender materials, on the more agreeable task of 
composition. A specimen of my History, the first book, was 
read the following winter in a literary society of foreigners in 
London ; and as the author was unknown, I listened, without 
observation, to the free strictures, and unfavourable sentence, 
of my judges.^ The momentary sensation was painful ; but 
their condemnation was ratified by my cooler thoughts. I 
delivered my imperfect sheets to the flames, ^ and for ever 
renounced a design in which some expense, much labour, and 
more time had been so vainly consumed. I cannot regret 
the loss of a slight and superficial essay, for such the work 
must have been in the hands of a stranger, uninformed by 
the scholars and statesmen, and remote from the libraries and 
archives of the Swiss republics. My ancient habits, and the 
presence of Deyverdun, encouraged me to write in French 
for the continent of Europe ; but I was conscious myself that 
my style, above prose and below poetry, degenerated into 
> a verbose and turgid declamation. Perhaps I may impute 
ithe failure to the injudicious choice of a foreign language. 
j Perhaps I may suspect that the language itself is ill adapted 

1 [See Appendix 30.] 

^He neglected to burn them. He left at Sheffield-Place the introduction, 
or first book, in forty-three pages folio, written in a very small hand, besides a 
considerable number of notes. Mr. Hume's opinion, expressed in the letter 
in the last note [Appendix 30], perhaps may justify the publication of it. — 
Sheffield. 

[The Introdziction d V Histoire Ginirale de la Kdpublique des Suisses fills 
ninety pages of vol. iii. of Gibbon's Misc. Works.} 



1767] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 173 

to sustain the vigour and dignity of an important narrative. 
But if France, so rich in literary merit, had produced a great 
original historian, his genius would have formed and fixed the 
idiom to the proper tone, the peculiar mode of historical 
eloquence. 

It was in search of some liberal and lucrative employment 
that my friend Deyverdun had visited England. His remit- 
tances from home were scanty and precarious. My purse was 
always open, but it was often empty ; and I bitterly felt the 
want of riches and power, which might have enabled me to 
correct the errors of his fortune. His wishes and qualifica- 
tions solicited .the station of the travelling governor of some 
wealthy pupil ; but every vacancy provoked so many eager 
candidates, that for a long time I struggled without success ; 
nor was it till after much application that I could even place 
him as a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State. In 
a residence of several years he never acquired the just 
pronunciation and familiar use of the English tongue, but 
he read our most difficult authors with ease and taste : his 
critical knowledge of our language and poetry was such as 
few foreigners have possessed ; and few of our countrymen 
could enjoy the theatre of Shakspeare and Garrick with 
more exquisite feeling and discernment. The consciousness 
of his own strength, and the assurance of my aid, emboldened 
him to imitate the example of Dr. Maty, whose Journal 
Britannique ^ was esteemed and regretted ; and to improve 
his model, by uniting with the transactions of literature a 
philosophic view of the arts and manners of the British 
nation. Our Journal for the year 1767, under the title of 
Memoires Litteraires de la Grande Bretagne, was soon finished, 
and sent to the press. ^ For the first article. Lord Lyttelton's 
History of Henry II., I must own myself responsible ; but the 
public has ratified my judgment of that voluminous work, in 



1 [Ante, p. 124.] 

2 [It was published in 1768. For an interesting letter by Gibbon about the 
first number see Misc. Works, ii. , 68.] 



174 EDWARD GIBBON [i767 

which sense and learning are not illuminated by a ray of 
genius. 1 The next specimen was the choice of my friend, 
The Bath Guide, a light and whimsical performance, of local, 
and even verbal, pleasantry. ^ I started at the attempt : he 
smiled at my fears : his courage was justified by success ; and 
a master of both languages will applaud the curious felicity 
with which he has transfused into French prose the spirit, 
and even the humour, of the English verse. ^ It is not my 

1 [Gibbon, after praising "deux grands hommes," Robertson and Hume, 
continues: "Nous ne prodiguerons jamais a la grandeur la rteompense des 
talens : Mylord L. ne doit point pr^tendre k la gloire de ces hommes de g^nie, 
mais il lui reste les qualit^s d'un bon citoyen, d'un savant tr6s-^clair6, d'un 6cri- 
vain exact et impartial, at c'est avec plaisir que nous les lui accordons" (P. 29). 

On July 14, 1767, Hume wrote to Adam Smith : ' ' Have you read Lord 
Lyttelton ? Do you not admire his Whiggery and his Piety ; qualities so useful 
both for this v^^orld and the next ? " {Huvie MSS. in the Royal Society of Edin- 
burgh). 

" BoswELL. ' I rather think, Sir, that Toryism prevails in this reign.' John- 
son. ' I know not why you should think so. Sir. You see your friend Lord 
Lyttelton, a nobleman, is obliged in his History to write the most vulgar 
Whiggism ' " (Boswell's /oAraww., ii. , 221). 

Johnson, in his Life of Lyttelton, describes how this History " was published 
with such anxiety as only vanity can dictate" (Johnson's Works, viii. , 492).] 

2 [ The Nezv Bath Guide, by Christopher Anstey, is in the list of books in the 
Gent. Mag. for May, 1766, p. 241. Horace Walpole wrote on June 20 {Letters, 
iv. , 504) : " It stole into the world, and for a fortnight no soul looked into it, 
concluding its name was its true name. No such thing. It is a set of letters in 
verse, in all kinds of verses, describing the life at Bath, and incidentally every- 
thing else ; but so much wit, so much humour, fun 9.nd poetry, so much 
originality, never met together before. Then the man has a better ear than 
Dryden or Handel. ... I can say it by heart, though a quarto, and if I had 
time would write it you down ; for it is not yet reprinted, and not one to be 
had." 

Gray wrote on Aug. 26 : " Have you read The New Bath Guide ? it is the 
only thing in fashion, and is a new and original kind of humour " (Mitford's 
Gray's Works, iv. , 84). 

According to Gary [Lives of the Poets, p. 184), after the second edition was 
published the author sold the copyright to Dodsley for ^200.] 

'^ [The following is a specimen of the verses and the translation. The hero 
describes a consultation of doctors over his case (Letter iv.) : — 

" Good doctor, I'm yours — 'tis a fine day for walking — 
Sad news in the papers — God knows who's to blame ! 
The colonies seem to be all in a flame — 
This stamp act, no doubt, might be good for the crown, 
But I fear 'tis a pill that will never go down — 
What can Portugal mean ? is she going to stir up 
Convulsions and heats in the bowels of Europe ? 
'Twill be fatal if England relapses again. 
From the ill blood and humours of Europe and Spain." 
" Bon jour, raon cher Docteur. — Le beau temps pour la promenade. — II y a 
de bien mauvaises nouvelles dans les papiers — Dieu salt k qui il faut s'en prendre. — 
Les colonies paraissent toutes dans une inflammation. Get Acte du Timbre 



1768-69] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 175 

wish to deny how deeply I was interested in these Memoirs, 
of which I need not surely be ashamed ; but at the distance 
of more than twenty years, it would be impossible for me to 
ascertain the respective shares of the two associates. A long 
and intimate communication of ideas had cast our sentiments 
and style in the same mould. In our social labours we com- 
posed and corrected by turns ; and the praise which I miight 
honestly bestow, would fall perhaps on some article or passage 
most properly my own. A second volume (for the year 1768) 
was published of these Memoirs.^ I will presume to say, 
that their merit was superior to their reputation ; but it is 
not less true, that they were productive of more reputation 
than emolument. They introduced my friend to the protec- 
tion, and myself to the acquaintance, of the Earl of Chester- 
field, whose age and infirmities secluded him from the 
world,^ and of Mr. David Hume, who was under-secretary to 
the office in which Deyverdun was more humbly employed.^ 
The former accepted a dedication (April 12, 1769):. ^^d 

peut etre bon, sans doute, pour la Cour, mais je crains qu'on ne puisse jamais 
leur faire avaler la pillule. — Que fait le Portugal? — Excitera-t-il une fermentation 
dans les entrailles de 1' Europe ? — L'Angleterre est k la veille d'une rechute fatale : 
gare les mauvaises humeurs du sang des Bourbons " (P. 33).] 

1 [This volume is not in the British Museum. Lowndes (ed. 1871, p. 886) 
records the sale of both vols, for £4 19s. and ^6 i6s. 6d. Messrs. H. Sotheran 
& Co. believe that no copy has ever passed through their hands.] 

2 [On Dec. 25, 1767, Chesterfield wrote : " I have no actual illness nor pain 
to complain of, but I am as lame of my legs as when you saw me, and must 
expect to be so for the rest of my life" (Chesterfield's A/wc. Works, ed. 1779, 
iv. , 316). On March 12, 1768, he wrote: " My deafness deprives me of the 
only rational pleasure that I can have at my age, which is society ; so that I 
read my eyes out every day, that I may not hang myself" [Letters to his Son, 
iv. , 272). One is surprised to find him two years later, cut off as he was from 
society and in his seventy-sixth year, ordering " four dozen of shirts" [Alisc. 

Works, iv. , 328).] 

3 [In February, 1767, Hume was appointed Under-Secretary of State by 
the Secretary of State, General Conway. B)^ Conway's resignation in the 
following January he lost his office (Hume's Letters to Strakan, pp. 103, 115). 
On Dec. 2, 1766, Hume wrote to the Countess de Boufflers : " A few posts ago 
I received a very curious letter from a Swiss gentleman who resides in London, 
but whom I never either saw or heard of before ; his name is Deyverdun, and 
he calls himself a native of Lausanne. He says that he was extremely surprised 
to find that Rousseau had accused me of being the author or accomplice of two 
libels wrote against him. . . . Now the Swiss gentleman tells me that he him- 
self was the author of them, and gives me leave to publish his letter for that 
purpose to the whole world " {Private Corres. of Hwne, p. 230). For Rousseau's 
attack on Hume see Hume's Letters to Strahan, pp. 74-103.] 



176 EDWAED GIBBON [i769 

reserved the author for the future education of his successor ^ : 
the latter enriched the Journal with a reply to Mr. Walpole's 
Historical Doubts, which he afterwards shaped into the form 
of a note.^ The materials of the third volume were almost 
completed, when I recommended Deyverdun as governor to 
Sir Richard Worsley, a youth, the son of my old Lieutenant- 
colonel, who was lately deceased.^ They set forwards on 

1 [His cousin, who in March, 1773, succeeded him as fifth earl, was at this 
time under the tuition of Dr. Dodd, who, eight years later, was hanged for 
forging the young man's name. In 1772 the youth was at Leipsig with Deyver- 
dun as his tutor (Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iv. , 208-9). On Sept. 10, 1773, 
Gibbon wrote to Holroyd : " I forgot to tell you that I have declined the 
publication of Lord Chesterfield's Letters. The public will see them, and upon 
the whole I think with pleasure ; but the whole family were strongly bent 
against it ; and, especially on Deyverdun's account, I deemed it more prudent 
to avoid making them my personal enemies " {Corres. , i. , 195). For the opposi- 
tion of the family to the publication see my introduction to Eightee7ith Cenhiry 
Letters (Johnson and Chestej-Jield) , 189S. 

On April 2, 1774, Gibbon wrote that " Deyverdun had been forced to quit 
Lord C. , by the little peer's strange behaviour," etc. (Carres., i., 210).] 

" [More than half the article is by Gibbon, who thus concludes : ' ' Les argu- 
mens de M. Walpole nous avaient ^bloui sans nous convaincre. Les reflexions 
suivantes nous ont ramen6 au sentiment g^n^ral ; elles sont de M. Hume, qui 
nous les a communiqu^es avec la permission d'en enrichir nos M6moires " (Misc. 
Works, iii., 341). 

The "note" is given in Hume's History, ed. 1773, iii., 454. "Nothing," 
writes Hume of Walpole (ib., p. 460), " can be a stronger proof how ingenious 
and agreeable that gentleman's pen is, than his being able to make an enquiry 
concerning a remote point of English antiquities an object of general conversa- 
tion. The foregoing note has been enlarged on account-of that performance." 

Walpole recorded in his Short Notes of my Life (Letters, Preface, p. 75), 
under date of May, 1769 : " Mr. David Hume had introduced to me one Diver- 
dun \sic\ a Swiss in the Secretary's office. This man wrote Mimoires Littirai7'es 
de la Grande Bretagne ; and Mr. Hume desired I would give him a copy of 
Lord Herbej-t's Life, that he might insert an extract in his Journal. I did. . . . 
In this new Journal \_Mimoires, 1768] I found a criticism on my Historic Doubts, 
with notes by Mr. Hume, to which the critic declared he gave the preference. 
Mr. Hume had shown me the notes last year in manuscript, but this conduct 
appeared so paltry, added to Mr. Hume's total silence, that I immediately wrote 
an answer, not only to these notes, but to other things that had been written 
against my Doubts. However, as I treated Mr. Hume with the severity he 
deserved, I resolved not to print this answer, only to show it to him in manu- 
script, and to leave it behind as an appendix to, and confirmation of, my 
Historic Doubts."'\ 

3 [.4«fe, p. 168. Gibbon wrote on March 21, 1772 : " Sir Richard Worsley is 
just come home. I am sorry to see many alterations, and little improvement. 
From an honest wild English buck, he is grown o. philosopher. Lord Petersfield 
displeases everybody by the affectation of consequence ; the young baronet 
disgusts no less by the affectation of wisdom. He speaks in short sentences, 
quotes Montaigne, seldom smiles, never laughs, drinks only water, professes to 
command his passions, and intends to marry in five months " (Corres., i. , 153). 

By "Lord Petersfield" Gibbon meant William Jolliffe, the Lord of the 
Manor (see ib,,. i., 171)-] 



1770] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 177 

their travels ; nor did they return to England till some time 
after my father's death. 

My next publication was an accidental sally of love and 
resentment ; of my reverence for modest genius, and my 
aversion for insolent pedantry. The sixth book of the ^Eneid 
is the most pleasing and perfect composition of Latin poetry. 
The descent of ^Eneas and the Sibyl to the infernal regions, 
to the world of spirits, expands an awful and boundless 
prospect, from the nocturnal gloom of the Cumaean grot, 

Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,^ 

to the meridian brightness of the Elysian fields ; 

Largior hie campos aether et lumine vestit 
Purpureo ^ 

from the dreams of simple Nature, to the dreams, alas ! of 
Egyptian theology, and the philosophy of the Greeks. But 
the final dismission of the hero through the ivory gate, whence 

Falsa ad ccelum mittunt insomnia manes,^ 

seems to dissolve the whole enchantment, and leaves the 
reader in a state of cold and anxious scepticism. This most 
lame and impotent conclusion has been variously imputed to 
the taste or irreligion of Virgil ; but, according to the more 
elaborate interpretation of Bishop Warburton, the descent to 
hell is not a false, but a mimic scene ; which represents the 
initiation of vEneas, in the character of a lawgiver, to the 
Eleusinian mysteries. This hypothesis, a singular chapter in 
the Divine Legation of Moses,* had been admitted by many 

^[^neid, vi., 268. 

" Obscure they went through dreary shades, that led 
Along the waste dominions of the dead." 

(Dryden.)] 
^[^?zetd, vi. , 640. 

' ' The verdant fields with those of heaven may vie, 
With ether vested, and a purple sky." 

(Dryden.)] 
'^l^neid, vi., 896. 

" Through polished ivory pass deluding lies." 

(Dryden.)] 
4 [Book ii., sect. 4.] 

12 



178 EDWAKD GIBBON [i77o 

as true ; it was praised by all as ingenious ; nor had it been 
exposed, in a space of thirty years, to a fair and critical 
discussion. The learning and the abilities of the author had 
raised him to a just eminence ; but he reigned the dictator 
and tyrant of the world of literature.^ The real merit of 
Warburton was degraded by the pride and presumption with 
which he pronounced his infallible decrees ; in his polemic 
writings he lashed his antagonists without mercy or modera- 
tion ; and his servile flatterers (see the base and malignant 
Essay on the Delicacy of Friendship^), exalting the master critic 
far above Aristotle and Longinus,^ assaulted every modest 
dissenter who refused to consult the oracle, and to adore the 
idol.'* In a land of liberty, such despotism must provoke a 



i["The state of authorship," wrote Warburton, "whatever that of nature 
may be, is certainly a state of war ' ' [Remarks on Several Occasional Rejections, 
ed. 1744, p. 3). Pope had said before him : " The life of a wit is a warfare upon 
earth " (Warton's Pope's Works, ed. 1822, i. , 63). 

" When I read Warburton first (said Johnson) and observed his force, and 
his contempt of mankind, I thought he had driven the world before him ; but I 
soon found that was not the case ; for Warburton, by extending his abuse, 
rendered it ineffectual" [^oswelVs Johnson, v., 93). 

Gibbon, after quoting from Procopius an obscene anecdote of Theodora, 
says : " I have heard that a learned prelate, now deceased, was fond of quoting 
this passage in conversation " ( The Decline, iv. , 213). I suspect that Warburton 
is meant from the close juxtaposition of the following note on p. 215 : " ' Let 
greatness own her, and she's mean no more,' etc. Without Warburton's 
critical telescope I should never have seen in the general picture of triumphant 
vice any personal allusion to Theodora." Warburton's note is given in 
his edition oi Pope's Works, iv. , 309.] 

2 [By Richard Hurd, afterwards Bishop of Worcester. Published anony- 
mously in 1755. It became scarce and would have remained forgotten, had not 
Parr reprinted it in 1789, from a MS. copy which, when he was a schoolmaster, 
he had set two of his boys to make (Johnstone's Parr's Works, i., 291). See 
ib., p. 307, for the explanation of Parr's enmity, and Boswell's Johnson, iv., 47. 
Gibbon charges Hurd with " the assassination of Jortin" in this book {Auto., 
p. 304). For Jortin see Johnson's Letters, ii., 276, and Pattison's Essays, ii., 131. 
Gibbon had at Lausanne engravings both of Warburton and Hurd (Read's 
Hist. Studies, ii. , 479). 

In a copy of The Letters from a Late Eminent Prelate to one of his Friends 
[Warburton to Hurd] Macaulay wrote at the head of the first letter, ' ' Bully to 
Sneak" (Trevelyan's Macaulay, ed. 1877, ii. , 469).] 

'^ [Gibbon refers to the dedication of Hurd's edition of Horace's Epistle to 
Augustus. He quotes the passage in his Critical Observations (Misc. Works, 
iv., 509)-] 

* [Hume VTTOte in 1771 : " Warburton and all his gang, the most scurrilous, 
arrogant and impudent fellows in the world, have been abusing me in their 
usual style these twenty years" {Letters to Strahan, p. 200). In his Autobiography 
Hume says : ' ' Dr. Hurd wrote a pamphlet against my Natural History of 



1770] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 179 

general oppositioiij and the zeal of opposition is seldom 
candid or impartial. A late professor of Oxford (Dr. Lowtji), 
in a pointed and polished epistle (August 3] , 1765), defended 
himself, and attacked the Bishop ; and, whatsoever might be 
the merits of an insignificant controversy, his victory was 
clearly established by the silent confusion of Warburton and 
his slaves.^ / too, without any private offence, was ambitious 
of breaking a lance against the giant's shield ; and in the 
beginning of the year 1770, my Critical Observations on the 
Sixth Book of the ^Eneid were sent, without my name, to the 
press.^ In this short Essay, my first English publication, I 
aimed my strokes against the person and the hypothesis of 
Bishop Warburton. I proved, at least to my own satisfaction, 
that the ancient lawgivers did not invent the mysteries, and 
that -^neas was never invested with the office of lawgiver : ^ 
that there is not any argument, any circumstance, which can 
melt a fable into allegory, or remove the scene from the Lake 
Avernus to the Temple of Ceres : that such a wild supposition 
is equally injurious to the poet and the man : that if Virgil 
was not initiated he could not, if he were, he would not, 
reveal the secrets of the initiation : that the anathema of 
Horace (yetabo qui Cereris sacrum vulgarit, etc.) at once attests 
his own ignorance and the innocence of his friend.^ As the 
Bishop of Gloucester and his party maintained a discreet 
silence, my critical disquisition was soon lost among the 
pamphlets of the day ; but the public coldness was over- 



Religion with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance and scurrility which distin- 
guish the Warburtonian school " {ib. , preface, p. 28). 

" The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the late Bishop of Gloucester, 
the learned and dogmatic Warburton ; who, with the authority of a theologian, 
prescribes the motives and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse 
entitled Julian is strongly marked with all the peculiarities which are imputed 
to the Warburtonian school" ^The Decline, ii., 457).] 

^[Anie, p. 49. "His Majesty then talked of the controversy between 
Warburton and Lowth, which he seemed to have read, and asked Johnson 
what he thought of it. Johnson answered, "Warburton has most general, 
most scholastick learning ; Lowth is the more correct scholar. I do not know 
which of them calls names best " (Boswell's Johiison, ii., 37).] 

"^^Misc. Works, iv., 467.] 

^\Ib., iv., 479, 484.] 4 [See Appendix 31.] 



180 EDWAED GIBBON [i77o 

balanced to my feelings by the weighty approbation of the 
last and best editor of Virgil^ Professor Heyne of Gottingen, 
who acquiesces in my confutation^ and styles the unknown 
author, doctus . . . et eleganlissimus Britannus?- But I cannot 
resist the temptation of transcribing the favourable judgment 
of Mr. Hayley, himself a poet and a scholar ; " An intricate 
hypothesis, twisted into a long and laboured chain of quota- 
tion and argument, the Dissertation on the Sixth Book of 
Virgil, remained some time unrefuted. . . . At length, a 
superior, but anonymous critic arose, who, in one of the most 
judicious and spirited essays that our nation has produced, on 
a point of classical literature, completely overturned this ill- 
founded edifice, and exposed the arrogance and futility of its 
assuming architect." ^ He even condescends to justify an 
acrimony of style, which had been gently blamed by the more 
unbiassed German ; " Paullo acrius quam velis . . . jjerstnnxit.^" 
But I cannot forgive myself the contemptuous treatment of a 
man who, with all his faults, was entitled to my esteem ^ ; 

1 [In Heyne's Virgil, Leipsic, 1787, ii. , 804, the unknown author is styled 
" vir doctus," and p. 821, n., "eleganlissimus Britannus".] 

^[Hnyley's Poetical Works, ed. 1785, ii., 112.] 

2 The editor of the Warburtonian Tracts, Dr. Parr (p. 192), considers the 
allegorical interpretation " as completely refuted in a mOst clear, elegant and 
decisive work of criticism ; which could not, indeed, derive authority from the 
greatest name ; but to which the greatest name might with propriety have been 
affixed. —Gibbon. 

[Parr added in a note that "this book is ascribed, and I think with great 
probability," to Gibbon (Pan-'s Works, iii., 417). For the Warbicrtonian 
Tracts see Boswell's Johnson, iv. , 47. 

Hayley, after quoting Heyne's remark, continues: "But what lover of 
poetry, unbiassed by personal connection, can speak of Warburton without 
some marks of indignation ? . . . He has sullied the page of every poet whom 
he pretended to illustrate, and frequently degraded the generous profession of 
criticism into a mean instrument of personal malignity " {ib., p. 116). 

Gray records Warburton's "contemptuous treatment " of Richard Terrick, 
who was made Bishop of London in 1764. " Now I am talking of Bishops," 
Gray wrote, " I must tell you that not long ago Bishop Warburton, in a sermon 
at Court, asserted that all preferments were bestowed on the most illiterate and 
worthless objects, and in speaking turned himself about, and stared directly at 
the Bishop of London ; he added, that if any one arose distinguished for merit 
and learning, there was a combination of dunces to keep him down. I need 
not tell you that he expected the Bishopric of London himself when Terrick got 
it " (Mitford's Gray s Works, iv. , 49).] 

*The Divine Legation of Moses is a monument, already crumbling in the 
dust, of the vigour and weakness of the human mind. If Warburton's new 
argument proved anything, it would be a demonstration against the legislator, 



1770-72] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 181 

and I can less forgive, in a personal attack, the cowardly 
concealment of my name and character. 

In the fifteen years between my Essay on the Study of 
Literature and the first volume of the Decline and Fall 
(176I-I776), this criticism on Warburton, and some articles 
in the Journal, were my sole publications. It is more 
especially incumbent on me to mark the employment, or 
to confess the waste of time, from my travels to my fathei-'s 
death, an interval in which I was not diverted by any pro- 
fessional duties from the labours and pleasures of a studious 
life. 1. As soon as I was released from the fruitless task of 
the Swiss revolutions (1768), I began gradually to advance 
from the wish to the hope, from the hope to the design, from 
the design to the execution, of my historical work, of whose 
limits and extent I had yet a very inadequate notion. The 
Classics, as low as Tacitus, the younger Pliny, and Juvenal, 
were my old and familiar companions. I insensibly plunged 
into the ocean of the Augustan history ; and in the descend- 
ing series I investigated, with my pen almost always in my 
hand, the original records, both Greek and Latin, from Dion 
Cassius to Ammianus Marcellinus,^ from the reign of Trajan 

who left his people without the knowledge of a future state. But some episodes 
of the work, on the Greek philosophy, the hieroglyphics of Egypt, etc., are 
entitled to the praise of learning, imagination, and discernment. — Gibbon. 

[Warburton's " new argument " is thus summed up by its author : " Having 
proved my three principal propositions, 

I. ' That the inculcating the doctrine of a future state of rewards and 
punishments is necessary to the well-being of society.' 

II. ' That all mankind, especially the most wise and learned nations of 
antiquity, have concurred in believing and teaching that this doctrine was of 
such use to civil society.' 

III. ' That the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not to 
be found in, nor did make part of the Mosaic Dispensation.' 

The conclusion is that therefore The Law of jMoses is of Divine 
Origin" (The Divine Legation, ed. 1765, v., 403). 

In Mr. Murray's ed. of the Aido., p. 283, the above note and note 3 on p. 180 
are assigned to Lord Sheffield. That they are Gibbon's is shown ib., p. 30.15.] 

1 [Gibbon thus mentions him in The Decline, iii. , 122, under the date of A.D. 
379-382 : " It is not without the most sincere regret that I must now take leave 
of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the history of his own times 
without indulging the prejudices and passions which usually affect the mind of a 
contemporary ". 

" Mr. Gibbon shows, it is true, so strong a dislike to Christianity as visibly 
disqualifies him for that society of which he has created Ammianus Marcellinus 
president " (Porson's Letters to Travis, ed. 1790, Preface, p. 28).] 



182 EDWARD GIBBON [1770-72 

to the last age of the Western Caesars. The subsidiary rays of 
medals, and inscriptions of geography and chronology, were 
thrown on their proper objects ^ ; and I applied the collections 
of Tillemont, whose inimitable accuracy almost assumes the 
character of genius,^ to fix and arrange within my reach the 
loose and scattered atoms of historical information. Through 
the darkness of the middle ages I explored my way in the 
Annals and Antiquities of Italy of the learned Muratori ^ ; 
and diligfently compared them with the parallel or transverse 
lines of Sigonius and MafFei,* Baronius and Pagi,^ till I almost 
grasped the ruins of Rome in the fourteenth century/ without 
suspecting that this final chapter must be attained by the 
labour of six quartos and twenty years. Among the books 
which I purchased, the Theodosian Code, with the commentary 
of James Godefroy,'^ must be gratefully remembered. I used 

^{^Anle, p. i6o.] 

^IPosf, p. 232. Gibbon does not always speak of him so respectfully. 
' ' Tillemont endeavours to pick his way. The patient and sure-footed mule of 
the Alps may be trusted in the most slippery paths" {TAe Decline, iii., 48). 
' ' Tillemont has raked together all the dirt of the Fathers ; an useful scavenger ! " 
{ib., iii., 153).] 

3 [Muratori, early in the eighteenth century, " reformed the ducal library of 
Modena. The name of Muratori will be for ever connected with the literature 
of his country. . . . His numerous writings . . . are impressed with sense and 
knowledge, with moderation and candour ; he moved in the narrow circle of an 
Italian priest ; but a desire of freedom, a ray of philosophic light sometimes 
breaks through his own prejudices and those of his readers. . . . He will not 
aspire to the fame of historical genius ; his modesty may be content with the solid, 
though humble praise of an impartial critic and indefatigable compiler " {Misc. 
Works, iii., 365-7). In The Decline (vii. , 300) Gibbon speaks of him as " my 
guide and master in the history of Italy ".] 

* [" Even Sigonius too freely copied the classic method of supplying from reason 
or fancy the deficiency of records" (ib., vii., 224). For the Marquis Maffei's 
Ve7'ona Illustrata see ib., p. 316.] 

s \Ante, p. 68, n. " Baronius is copious and florid, but he is accused of placing 
the lies of different ages on the same level of authenticity" {The Decline, iii., 
389). " Father Pagi, to whom good letters have many obligations, shows (in 
his Dissertatio Hypafica, p. 368) that he read history like a monk" {Misc. 
Works, v., 574). For their " angry growl " see The Decline, iv. , 195.] 

s [The last chapter of The Decline, opens with the ' ' Prospect of the Ruins 
of Rome in the Fifteenth Century ". " In the last days of Pope Eugenius IV. 
[a.d. 1430] two of his servants, the learned Poggius and a friend, ascended 
the Capitoline Hill ; reposed themselves among the ruins of columns and 
temples ; and viewed from that commanding spot the wide and various prospect 
of desolation."] 

^[" His mind was balanced by the opposite prejudices of a Civilian and a 
Protestant" {The Decline, ii. , 319).] 



1770-72] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 183 

it (and much I used it) as a work of history, rather than of 
jurisprudence : but in every light it may be considered as a 
full and capacious repository of the political state of the 
empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. As I believed, and 
as I still believe, that the propagation of the Gospel, and the 
triumph of the church, are inseparably connected with the 
decline of the Roman monarchy, ^ I weighed the causes and 
effects of the revolution, and contrasted the narratives and 
apologies of the Christians themselves, with the glances of 
candour or enmity which the Pagans have cast on the rising 
sects. 2 The Jewish and Heathen testimonies, as they are 
collected and illustrated by Dr. Lardner,^ directed, without 
superseding, my search of the originals ; and in an ample 
dissertation on the miraculous darkness of the passion, I 
privately drew my conclusions from the silence of an un- 
believing age.* I have assembled the preparatory studies, 

1 [" As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may 
hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of 
Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. 
The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity ; 
the active virtues of society were discouraged ; and the last remains of military 
spirit were buried in the cloister," etc. (The Decline, iv., 162). " The monks 
were more expensive and more numerous than the soldiers of the East " (ib. , 
iv. , 341). "The disputes of the Trinity were succeeded by those of the 
Incarnation, alike scandalous to the Church, alike pernicious to the State " 
[ib. , v., 96). " The verbal disputes of the Oriental sects have shaken the pillars 
of the Church and State" [ib., v., 106). "The religion of the Greeks could 
only teach them to suffer and to yield" [ib., vi. , 95). " The schism of Con- 
stantinople, by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most 
dangerous enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire 
in the East " {ib., vi., 366). " I have described the triumph of barbarism and 
religion" (ib., vii., 308).] 

2 [For Gibbon's admiration of " the incomparable pliancy of a Polytheist " 
see The Decline, iii. , 31.] 

3 [Nathaniel Lardner, D.D. , 1688-1768. "The scandalous calumnies of 
Augustine, Pope Leo, etc. , which Tillemont swallows like a child, and Lardner 
refutes like a man," etc. ( The Decline, iii. , 154).] 

^[" Under the reign of Tiberius the whole earth, or at least a celebrated 
province of the Roman empire, was involved in a praeternatural darkness 
of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the 
wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an 
age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the 
elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the 
earliest intelligence of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious 
work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, 
comets, and eclipses which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the 
one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which 
the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe " (j,b., ii., 70).] 



184 EDWARD GIBBON [i770-72 

directly or indirectly relative to my history ; but, in strict 
equity, they must be spread beyond this period of my life, over 
the two summers (1771 and 1772) that elapsed between my 
father's death and my settlement in London. 2. In a free 
conversation with books and men, it would be endless to 
enumerate the names and characters of all who are introduced 
to our acquaintance ; but in this general acquaintance we may 
select the degrees of friendship and esteem. According to 
the wise maxim, Multuvi legere potius quam midta, I reviewed, 
again and again, the immortal works of the French and 
English, the Latin and Italian classics. My Greek studies 
(though less assiduous than I designed) maintained and 
extended my knowledge of that incomparable idiom. Homer 
and Xenophon ^ were still my favourite authors ; and I had 
almost prepared for the press an Essay on the Cyropoedia, 
which, in my own judgment, is not unhappily laboured. 
After a certain age, the new publications of merit are the 
sole food of the many ; and the most austere student will be 
often tempted to break the line, for the sake of indulging his 
own curiosity, and of providing the topics of fashionable cur- 
rency. A more respectable motive may be assigned for the 
third perusal of Blackstone's Commentaries, and a copious 
and critical abstract of that English work was my first serious 
production in my native language.^ 3. My literary leisure 
was much less complete and independent than it might 
appear to the eye of a stranger. In the hurry of London 
I was destitute of books ; in the solitude of Hampshire I was 
not master of my time. My quiet was gradually disturbed 
by our domestic anxiety, and I should be ashamed of my 
unfeeling philosophy, had I found much time or taste for 



^{Ante, p. 92. Gibbon's praise of Herodotus is comical enough. "He 
has erected an elegant trophy to his own fame and to that of his country " {ib. , 
ii-. 145)-] 

2 [In his Remarks on Blackstone's Commentaries Gibbon says (evidently in 
reference to the second section of the Introduction) : " I have entirely omitted 
a metaphysical inquiry upon the nature of laws in general, eternal and positive 
laws, and a number of sublime terms, which I admire as much as I can without 
understanding them" [Misc. Works, v., 546).] 



1770-72] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 185 

study in the last fatal summer (1770) of my father's decay 
and dissolution. 

The disembodying of the militia at the close of the war 
(1763) had restored the Major (a new Cincinnatus) to a life of 
agriculture. His labours were useful, his pleasures innocent, 
his wishes moderate ; and my father seemed to enjoy the state 
of happiness which is celebrated by poets and philosophers, 
as the most agreeable to nature, and the least accessible to 
fortune. 

Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis 
(Ut prisca gens mortalium) 
Paterna rura bubus exercet suis, 
Solutus omni fcenore.-^ 

But the last indispensable condition, the freedom from debt, 
was wanting to my fathei''s felicity ; and the vanities of his 
youth were severely punished by the solicitude and sorrow of 
his declining age. The first mortgage, on my return from 
Lausanne (1758), had afforded him a partial and transient 
relief.^ The annual demand of interest and allowance was a 
heavy deduction from his income ; the militia was a source of 
expence, the farm in his hands was not a profitable adventure, 
he was loaded with the costs and damages of an obsolete law- 
suit ; and each year multiplied the number, and exhausted 
the patience, of his creditors. Under these painful circum- 
stances, I consented to an additional mortgage,^ to the sale of 
Putney,* and to every sacrifice that could alleviate his dis- 

1 [Horace, Epod., ii. , i. 

" Like the first mortals, blest is he 
From debts, and usury, and business free, 
With his own team who ploughs the soil. 
Which grateful once confessed his father's toil." 

(Francis.)] 

2 [It was a mortgage of /'lo.ooo, raised on an entailed estate ; his son con- 
senting to break the entail, and the father, in return, settling on him an annuity 
for life of ;i^30o [Auto., pp. 155, 243, 399; Co)'?'es., i., 69). What Gibbon 
thought of entails he shows in his chapter on Roman Law. ' ' The simplicity of 
the civil law was never clouded by the long and intricate entails which confine 
the happiness and freedom of unborn generations " [The Decline, iv. , 491).] 

■'[It must have been one of ^^7, 000, as the total of the mortgages left by his 
father was £17,000 (Auto., p. 290).] 

*[It was sold for _^8,5oo [Carres., i., 105, 107, and Misc. Works, i., 19, «.).] 



186 EDWARD GIBBON [i77o-72 

tress. But he was no longer capable of a rational effort^ and 
his reluctant delays postponed not the evils themselves, but 
the remedies of those evils [reinedia malorum potius quam mala 
differehat).^ The pangs of shame, tenderness, and self- 
reproach, incessantly preyed on his vitals ; his constitution 
was broken ; he lost his strength and his sight ; the rapid 
progress of a dropsy admonished him of his end, and he sunk 
into the grave on the tenth of November, 1770,^ in the sixty- 
fourth year of his age. A family tradition insinuates that 
Mr. William Law had drawn his pupil in the light and 
inconstant character of Flatus,^ who is ever confident, and 
ever disappointed in the chace of happiness. But these 
constitutional failings were happily compensated by the 
virtues of the head and heart, by the warmest sentiments 
of honour and humanity. His graceful person, polite address, 
gentle manners, and unaiFected cheerfulness, recommended 
him to the favour of every company * ; and in the change of 
times and opinions, his liberal spirit had long since delivered 
him from the zeal and prejudice of a Tory education. I 
submitted to the order of Nature ; and my grief was soothed 
by the conscious satisfaction that I had discharged all the 
duties of filial piety. ^ 

As soon as I had paid the last solemn duties to my father, 

1 [" Remedia potius malorum quam mala differebat " (Tacitus, Hist, 
iii., 54). 

To his step-mother he wrote on Jan. 21, 1769 : " For God's sake, for all our 
sakes, press my father to recollect everything, to look out everything, and to 
send us everything that he can. All our difficulties proceed from former care- 
lessness" {Cor res., i. , 97).] 

2 [It was on Nov. 12 his father died (see Corres., i., 117, 122).] 

3 \_A Serious Call, ch. xii. Gibbon's father was Law's pupil when the book 
was published. The chapter may have been written as a warning to him ; but 
it is impossible to believe that his character was drawn.] 

'^[Anie, p. 115.] 

5 [Gibbon wrote to Holroyd on April 29, 1767, when his father " was taken 
dangerously ill " : "I can assure you, my dear Holroyd, that the same event 
appears in a very different light when the danger is serious and immediate ; or 
when, in the gaiety of a tavern dinner, we affect an insensibility that would do 
us no great honour were it real " ( Corres. , i., 86). On April 13, 1774, he wrote of 
a friend who had lost his father : ' ' Incredible as it sounds to the generality of sons, 
and as it ought to sound to most fathers, he considered the old gentleman as a 
friend " [ib., i. , 211).] 



1773] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 187 

and obtained, from time and reason, a tolerable composm-e of 
mind, I began to form the plan of an independent life, most 
adapted to my circumstances and inclination. Yet so intricate 
was the net, my efforts were so awkward and feeble, that 
nearly two years (November, 1770 — October, 1772) were 
suffered to elapse before I could disentangle myself from the 
management of the farm,^ and transfer my residence from 
Buriton to a house in London.^ During this interval I con- 
tinued to divide my year between town and the country ; but 
my new situation was brightened by hope ; my stay in London 
was prolonged into the summer ; and the uniformity of the 
summer was occasionally broken by visits and excursions at a 
distance from home. The gratification of my desires (they 
were not immoderate ^) has been seldom disappointed by the 
want of money or credit ; my pride was never insulted by the 
visit of an importunate tradesman ; and any transient anxiety 
for the past or future has been dispelled by the studious or 
social occupation of the present hour. My conscience does 
not accuse me of any act of extravagance or injustice, and the 
remnant of my estate affords an ample and honourable pro- 
vision for my declining age. I shall not expatiate on my 
economical affairs,* which cannot be instructive or amusing to 

^ [Seventeen years later, when he was trying to sell the estate, he wrote : 
" What is the difficulty of the title? Will men of sense, in a sensible country, 
never get rid of the tyranny of lawyers ? more oppressive and ridiculous than 
even the old yoke of the clergy " (il>., ii. , 200).] 

^[Gibbon wrote to Holroyd from Buriton in 1772 : " I am just arrived, as 
well as yourself, at my dii penates, but with very different intention. You will 
ever remain a bigot to those rustic deities ; I propose to abjure them soon, and 
to reconcile myself to the Catholic Church of London. ... I am so happy, so 
exquisitely happy, at feeling so many mountains taken off my shoulders that I 
can brave your indignation, and even the three-forked lightning of Jupiter him- 
self " (Corres., i., 155, 165). 

On Feb. 11, 1773, he wrote to his step-mother "from my own house 
in Bentinck Street [No. 7]" (ib., i., 179). On May 24, 1774, he wrote to 
Holroyd : " Never pretend to allure me, by painting in odious colours the dust 
of London. I love the dust, and whenever I move into the Wold, it is to visit 
you and My lady, and not your Trees" [ib., i., 218).] 

"^["A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect to the temperate 
dictates of nature, and improves the gratifications of sense by social intercourse, 
endearing connections, and the soft colouring of taste and imagination" [Tlie 
Decline, i., 146).] 

^[For a long passage in which he had " expatiated" see Auto., pp. 289-291. 
At the end of it he consoles himself by the reflection that his "patrimony had 
been diminished in the enjoyment of life".] 



188 EDWARD GIBBON [1773 

the reader. It is a rule of prudence, as well as of politeness, 
to reserve such confidence for the ear of a private friend, 
without exposing our situation to the envy or pity of strangers ; 
for envy is productive of hatred, and pity borders too nearly 
on contempt. Yet I may believe, and even assert, that in 
circumstances more indigent or more wealthy, I should never 
have accomplished the task, or acquired the fame, of an 
historian ; that my spirit would have been broken by poverty 
and contempt, and that my industry might have been relaxed 
in the labour and luxury of a superfluous fortune.^ 

I had now attained the first of earthly blessings, indepen- 
dence. ^ I was the absolute master of my hours and actions : 
nor was I deceived in the hope that the establishment of my 
library in town would allow me to divide the day between 
study and society. Each year the circle of my acquaintance, 
the number of my dead and living companions, was enlarged. 
To a lover of books, the shops and sales of London present 
irresistible temptations ; and the manufacture of my History 
required a various and growing stock of materials.^ The 

i[See/(3j^, p. 243, for " the golden mediocrity of my fortune".] 

^ [See Auto. , p. 306, for a curious omission in the text, where Gibbon describes 
"the sohd comforts of life," and adds: " These advantages were crowned by 
the first," etc. 

On May 8, 1762, he recorded in his journal : " I can command all the con- 
veniences of life, and I can command too that independence (that first earthly 
blessing) which is hardly to be met with in a higher or lower fortune" [Misc. 
Works, i. , 147).] 

3 [Gibbon wrote in 1779 : ' ' The greatest city in the world is still destitute of 
a public library ; and the writer who has undertaken to treat any large historical 
subject is reduced to the necessity of purchasing, for his private use, a numerous 
and valuable collection of the books which must form the basis of his work" 
(Misc. Works, iv., 591). 

In 1792, writing about " the future fate" of his library, he said : " If indeed 
a true liberal public library existed in London, I might be tempted to enrich 
the catalogue" (Corres., ii., 301). 

Johnson used to read in the library at the Queen's House (Boswell's Johnson, 

ii-, 33)- 

So early as 1758 rules had been drawn up for the British Museum Library 
(Gent. Mag., 1758, p. 629). It was increased in 1763 by 30,000 books and tracts 
of the Civil Wars presented by the King (ib., 1763, p. 576). The restrictions 
imposed by the rules and by the officials were great. 

Froude, writing of the )'ear 1834, says : " In the British Museum lay con- 
cealed somewhere 'a collection of French pamphlets' on the Revolution, the 
completest in the world, which, after six weeks' wrestle with officiality, Carlyle 
was obhged to find 'inaccessible' to him" (Froude's Carlyle (1795-1835), ed. 
1882, ii., 450).] 



1773] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 189 

militia, my travels, the House of Commons, the fame of an 
author, contributed to m.ultiply my connections : I was chosen 
a member of the fashionable clubs ; and, before I left Eng- 
land in 1783, there were few persons of any eminence in the 
literary or political world to whom. I was a stranger. ^ It 
would most assuredly be in my power to amuse the reader 
with a gallery of portraits and a collection of anecdotes. But 
I have always condemned the practice of transforming a 
private memorial into a vehicle of satire or praise. By my 
own choice I passed in town the greatest part of the year ; 
but whenever I was desirous of breathing the air of the 
country, I possessed an hospitable retreat at Sheffield-place 
in Sussex, in the family of my valuable friend Mr. Holroyd, 
whose character, under the name of Lord Sheffield, has since 
been more conspicuous to the public. ^ 

No sooner was I settled in my house and library, than I 
undertook the composition of the first volume of my History. 
At the outset all was dark and doubtful ; even the title of the 
work,3 the true sera of the Decline and Fall of the Empire, 
the limits of the introduction, the division of the chapters, 
and the order of the narrative ; and I was often tempted to 
cast away the labour of seven years. The style of an author 

^ [See Appendix 32.] 

2 [A view of Sheffield Place is given in vol. i. of Gibbon's Misc. Works, and 
a portrait of Lord Sheffield in The Girlhood of M. J. Holroyd, p. 112. On 
Nov. 27, 1780, Gibbon wrote ' ' to Mrs. Holroyd announcing that Colonel 
Holroyd was created Lord Sheffield": "Mr. Gibbon presents his respectful 
compliments to Lady Sheffield, and hopes her Ladyship is in perfect health, as 
well as the Honble. Miss Holroyd, and the Honble. Miss Louisa Holroyd. 
Mr. Gibbon has not had the honour of hearing from Lord Sheffield since his 
Lordship reached Coventry, but supposes that the Election begins this day. 
Be honest. How does this read? Do you not feel some titillations of vanity ? " 
{Corres., i. , 392.) 

As Lord Sheffield's was an Irish peerage he could still sit in the House of 
Commons for any place in Great Britain. ] 

3 [In The Decline, iii. , 268, he mentions ' ' a rough draught of the present 
History made as early as 1771 ". The first mention of it in his letters is on 
Sept. 10, 1773, where he speaks of "the prosecution of my great work" 
(Corres., i., 194). A year later he wrote of a journey to Bath: " It will most 
wonderfully delay the fall of the Roman Empire" (ii., p. 230). On June 7, 
1775, he mentions the full title in a letter to his step-mother: " I am just at 
present engaged in a great Historical Work, no less than a History of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. . . . During some years it has been 
in my thoughts and even under my pen" [id., p. 259).] 



190 EDWARD GIBBON [i773 

should be the image of his mind, but the choice and com- 
mand of language is the fruit of exercise.^ Many experiments 
were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull 
chronicle and a rhetorical declamation : three times did I 
compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, 
before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. ^ In the 
remainder of the way I advanced with a more equal and 
easy pace ; but the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters have 
been reduced by three successive revisals, fx'om a large volume 
to their present size ; and they might still be compressed, 
without any loss of facts or sentiments.^ An opposite fault 
may be imputed to the concise and superficial narrative of 
the first reigns from Commodus to Alexander ; a fault of 
which I have never heard, except from Mr. Hume in his last 
journey to London.* Such an oracle might have been con- 
sulted and obeyed with rational devotion ; but I was soon 

^[An^e, p. I.] 

2 [As to Gibbon's style, much as he sometimes admired it, R. P. [Richard 
Porson] was wont to remark ' ' that it would be a good exercise for a schoolboy 
to translate occasionally a page of Gibbon into English " (Porson's Tracts, 
Preface, p. 46). "In endeavouring to avoid vulgar terms he too frequently 
dignifies trifles, and clothes common thoughts in a splendid dress that would be 
rich enough for the noblest ideas. . . . Sometimes in his anxiety to vary his 
phrase he becomes obscm-e. . . . Sometimes in his attempts at elegance he loses 
sight of English, and sometimes of sense" (Porson's Letters to Travis, Preface, 
pp. 28-30). 

Burke, in a letter quoted in Dugald Stewart's Life of Robertson, ed. 1811, p. 
370, probably having Gibbon mainly in view, criticises " a style which," he 
says, " daily gains ground amongst us. . . . The tendency of the mode is to 
establish two very different idioms amongst us, and to introduce a marked dis- 
tinction between the English that is written and the English that is spoken. . . . 
From this feigned manner oi falsetto , as I think the musicians call something of 
the same sort in singing, no one modern historian, Robertson only excepted, is 
perfectly free. It is assumed, I know, to give dignity and variety to the style. 
But whatever success the attempt may sometimes have, it is always obtained at 
the expense of purity, and of the graces that are natural and appropriate to our 
language." Stewart goes on to say : " I can much more easily reconcile my- 
self, in a grave and dignified argument, to the dulcia vitia of Tacitus and 
Gibbon than to that affectation of cant words and allusions which so often 
debases Mr. Burke's eloquence." 

See also Landor's Imag. Conv., ed. C. G. Crump, iii., 273, and Lander's 
Works, ed. 1876, viii., 300, for Gibbon's style.] 

3 [See Carres:, \., 264.] 

4 [Hume, who died on Aug. 25, 1776, arrived in London from Edinburgh on 
IVTay I. He was on his way to Bath, in the vain hope of finding relief there 
from the illness under which he was sinking {^Letters of Hume to Sirahan, 
p. 321).] 



1774] MEMOmS OF MY LIFE 191 

disgusted with the modest practice of reading the manuscript 
to my friends. Of such friends some will praise from polite- 
ness, and some will criticise from vanity. The author himself 
is the best judge of his own performance ^ ; no one has so 
deeply meditated on the subject ; no one is so sincerely in- 
terested in the event. 

By the friendship of Mr. (now Lord) Eliot, who had 
married my first cousin, ^ I was returned at the general elec- 
tion for the borough of Liskeard.^ I took my seat at the 
beginning of the memorable contest between Great Britain 
and Am.erica, and supported with many a sincere and silent 
vote, the rights, though not, perhaps, the interest, of the 
mother country .^ After a fleeting illusive hope, prudence 
condemned me to acquiesce in the humble station of a mute.^ 
I was not armed by Nature and education with the intrepid 
energy of mind and voice, 

Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis.^ 

Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the success of my 

1 [" As to the friendly critic," Gibbon wrote, "it is very difficult to find one 
who has leisure, candour, freedom and knowledge sufficient. After all, the 
public is the best critic " [Carres., i. , 265). 

" 'Tis a question variously disputed whether an author may be allowed as a 
competent judge of his own works. As to the fabric and contrivance of them 
certainly he may ; for that is properly the employment of the judgment. . . . 
But for the ornament of writing . . . as it is properly the child of fancy, so it 
can receive no measure, or at least but a very imperfect one, of its own excellence 
or failures from the judgment" (Dryden's Works, ed. 1882, ii. , 418). 

See ante, p. 124.] 

'^[Ante, p. 21.] S[|See Appendix 33.] '^{/b., 34.] 

■''[On Feb. 25, 1775, he wrote : " I am still a mute ; it is more tremendous 
than I imagined ; the great speakers fill me with despair, the bad ones with 
terror" [Corres., i., 251). So early as 1760 he wrote to his father: "I never 
possessed that gift of speech, the first requisite of an orator, which use and 
labour may improve, but which Nature alone can bestow. . . . An unexpected 
objection would disconcert me ; and as I am incapable of explaining to others 
what I do not thoroughly understand myself, I should be meditating while I 
ought to be answering " {Misc. Works, ii. , 39). 

See The Quarterly Review, No. 100, p. 282, for Milraan's criticism of Ville- 
main, ' ' who traces in Gibbon's mute and unambitious parliamentary career the 
'coldness of his temperament,' and his ' deadness to all lofty and generous 
emotions' ".] 

6 [Horace, Ars Poet., 1. 82: — 

' ' Their numerous cadence was for action fit. 
And form'd to quell the clamours of the pit." 

(Francis.)] 



192 EDWARD GIBBON [1775-76 

pen discouraged the trial of my voice.^ But I assisted ^ 
at the debates of a free assembly ; I listened to the attack 
and defence of eloquence and reason ; I had a near prospect 
of the characters, views, and passions of the first men of the 
age. The cause of government was ably vindicated by Lord 
North, a statesman of spotless integrity,^ a consummate master 
of debate, who could wield, with equal dexterity, the arms of 
reason and ridicule. He was seated on the Treasury-bench 
between his Attorney and Solicitor General, the two pillars 
of the law and state,* magis pares quam similes^; and the 
minister might indulge in a short slumber, "^ whilst he was 
upholden on either hand by the majestic sense of Thurlow,'^ 

1 A French sketch of Mr. Gibbon's life, written by himself, probably for the 
use of some foreign journalist or translator, contains no fact not mentioned in 
his English life. He there describes himself with his usual candour. ' ' Depuis 
huit ans il a assist^ aux deliberations les plus importantes, mais il ne s'est jamais 
trouve le courage, ni le talent, de parler dans une assembl^e publique. " This 
sketch was written before the publication of his three last volumes, as in closing 
it he says of his History : " Cette entreprise lui demande encore plusieurs ann^es 
d'une application soutenue ; mais quelqu'en soit le succes, il trouve dans cette 
application meme un plaisir toujours vari6 et toujours renaissant ". — Sheffield. 

2 [Johnson, in his Dictiofiary, does not give assist in this sense, though a 
few earlier instances are found. He would probably have censured this 
"secondary sense" as he censured "the secondary sense of transpire. 'To 
escape from secrecy to notice ; a sense lately innovated from France without 
necessity'" ( Bos well's /o/zwww, iii. , 343).] 

2 [Gibbon was fortunate in having such a leader, for "-according to the ex- 
perience of human nature we may calculate a hundred, nay a thousand chances, 
against the public virtues of a statesman" {Misc. Works, iii., 394. See fast, 
p. 228).] 

•*[" With grave 
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd 
A pillar of state." 

[Paradise Lost, ii. , 300. )] 

s["Nam mihi egregie dixisse videtur Servilius Novianus, pares eos magis 
quam similes" (Quinctilian, Inst. Orat., x. , i). Quoted also by Gibbon {Misc., 
Works, iv,, 403). 

' ' Magis pares quam similes has been more than once applied to these two 
great orators [Fox and Pitt] " (Lord Holland's Memoirs of the Whig Party, 

ii-. 39)-] 

15 [Burke, on March 18, 1779, attacking the supineness of ministers, "hoped 
that government was not dead, but only asleep. At this moment he looked 
directly at Lord North, who was asleep, and said in the Scripture phrase, 
' Brother Lazarus is not dead, but sleepeth'. The laugh was loud. Even the 
noble Lord seemed to enjoy the allusion as heartily as the rest of the House, as 
soon as he was sufficiently awake to understand the cause of the joke" {Pari. 
Hist., XX., 327).] 

■^[Thurlow was made Chancellor in 1778. " Mr. Fox once said, ' I suppose 
no man was ever so wise as Thurlow looks, for that is impossible'" (Lord 
Holland's Memoirs, etc., ii. , 6). Lord Holland adds that " his language, his 



1776] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 193 

and the skilful eloquence of Wedderbwne.^ From the adverse 
side of the house an ardent and powerful opposition was 
supported, by the lively declamation of Barrel the legal 
acuteness of Dufming,^ the profuse and philosophic fancy of 
Burke, and the argumentative vehemence of Fox, who in the 
conduct of a party approved himself equal to the conduct of 
an empire. By such men every operation of peace and war, 
every principle of justice or policy, every question of authority 
and freedom, was attacked and defended * ; and the subject 
of the momentous contest was the union or separation of 
Great Britain and America. The eight sessions that I sat 
in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and 
most essential virtue of an historian.^ 

The volume of my History, which had been somewhat de- 



manner, his public delivery, and even his conduct were all of a piece with his 
looks ; all calculated to inspire the world with a high notion of his gravity, 
learning, or wisdom ; but all assumed for the purpose of concealing the real 
scantiness of his attainments, the timidity as well as obscurity of his under- 
standing," etc. 

" No Sir," said Johnson, "it is when you come close to a man in conversa- 
tion, that you discover what his real abilities are ; to make a speech in a publick 
assembly is a knack. Now I honour Thurlow, Sir ; Thurlow is a fine fellow ; 
he fairly puts his mind to yours" (^osvf&W's loknson, iv. , 179. See also ib., 
iv., 327). Of the " majestic sense" for which he was so famous the following is 
an instance. In 1788 a deputation of dissenters waited on him to ask him to 
support the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. ' ' The Chancellor heard 
them very civilly, and then said, ' Gentlemen, I'm against you, by G — . I am 
for the Established Church, d-amme ! Not that I have any more regard for 
the Established Church than for any other church, but because it is established. 
And if you can get your d — d religion established, I'll be for that too ! ' " (H. C. 
Robinson's Diary, i. , 378. )] 

^[Post, p. 206.] 

2 [Gibbon described Barr6 as "an actor equal to Garrick " [Corres., i., 240).] 

"* [John Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton. ' ' The fact is well known," said 
Lord Shelburne, ' ' of Lord Loughborough [Wedderburne] beginning a law argu- 
ment in the absence of Mr. Dunning, but upon hearing him hem in the course 
of it, his tone so changed that there was not a doubt in any part of the House 
of the reason of it" (Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, iii. , 454). His "hem" is ex- 
plained by Wraxall {Memoirs, ed. 1815, ii. , 42). " His voice was so husky that 
he lay always under a necessity of involuntarily announcing his intention to 
address the House some time before he rose, by repeated attempts to clear his 
throat."] 

* [" The use and reputation of oratory among the ancient Arabs is the clearest 
evidence of public freedom " ( The Decline, v. , 321).] 

^ [Gibbon wrote to Deyverdun on May 20, 1783 : " Vous n'avez pas oubli6 
que je suis entr6 au Parlement sans patriotisme, sans ambition, et que toutes 
mes vues se bornaient k la place commode et honnSte d'un Lord of T?-ade" 
(Corres., ii. , 36).] 

13 



194 EDWARD GIBBON [1776 

layed by the novelty and tumult of a first session, was now 
ready for the press. After the perilous adventure had been 
declined by my friend Mr. Elmsley,^ I agreed, upon easy 
terms, with Mr. Thomas Cadell, a respectable bookseller, and 
Mr. William Strahan, an eminent printer ^ ; and they under- 
took the care and risk of the publication, which derived more 
credit from the name of the shop than from that of the author. 
The last revisal of the proofs was submitted to my vigilance ; 
and many blemishes of style, which had been invisible in the 
manuscript, were discovered and corrected in the printed 
sheet. So moderate were our hopes, that the original im- 
pression had been stinted to five hundred,^ till the number 
was doubled, by the prophetic taste of Mr. Strahan. During 
this awful interval I was neither elated by the ambition of 
fame, nor depressed by the apprehension of contempt. My 
diligence and accuracy were attested by my own conscience. 
History is the most popular species of writing, since it can 
adapt itself to the highest or the lowest capacity. I had 
chosen an illustrious subject. Rome is familiar to the school- 
boy and the statesman ; and my narrative was deduced from 
the last period of classical reading. I had likewise flattered 
myself, that an age of light and liberty would receive, without 
scandal, an inquiry into the human causes of the progress and 
establishment of Christianity.^ 

1 [In like manner John Murray " declined the adventure " of publishing two 
of the most popular histories of this century — Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella 
and Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic (See Ticknor's Life of Prescoit, ed. 
1864, p. 103, and Holmes's Memoirs of Motley, ed. 1889, p. 74). For a brief 
account of Elmsley see Nichols's Lit. Anec, vi. , 440.] 

2 [For an account of Strahan see Hume's Letters to Straha?i, Preface, p. 43, 
and of Cadell, ib., p. 92. Hume wrote to Strahan on April 8, 1776 : " There 
will no books of reputation now be printed in London but through your hands 
and Mr. Cadell's" {ib., p. 314).] 

3 [Wilberforce (Life, ii., 199) records how in 1797, when he was publishing 
his Practical Christianity , ' ' Cadell said to him : ' You mean to put your name 
to the work ? Then I think we may venture upon 500 copies. ' Within a few 
days it was out of print, and within half a year 7,500 copies had been called 
for."] 

*["Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the 
Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the established religions 
of the earth. To this inquiry an obvious but satisfactory answer may be re- 
turned, that it was owing to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and 



1T76] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 195 

I am at a loss how to describe the success of the work, 
without betraying the vanity of the writei*. The first im- 
pression was exhausted in a few days ; a second and third 
edition were scarcely adequate to the demand ^ ; and the 
bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of 
Dublin. 2 My book was on every table^ and almost on every 
toilette ; the historian was crowned by the taste or fashion of 
the day ; nor was the general voice disturbed by the barking 
of any -profane critic.^ The favour of mankind is most freely 
bestowed on a new acquaintance of any original merit ; and 
the mutual surprise of the public and their favourite is pro- 
ductive of those warm sensibilities, which at a second meeting 
can no longer be rekindled. If I listened to the music of 
praise, I was more seriously satisfied with the approbation of 
my judges.^ The candour of Dr. Robertson embraced his 
disciple.^ A letter fi-om Mr. Hume overpaid the labour of 
ten years ; but I have never presumed to accept a place in 
the triumvirate of British historians.*^ 

to the ruling providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom 
find so favourable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of Providence 
frequently condescends to use the passions of the human heart, and the general 
circumstances of mankind, as instruments to execute its purpose, we may still 
be permitted, though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were 
the first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the 
Christian Church" {The Decline, ii. , 2).] 

1 [See Appendix 35.] 

"^{^Post, p. 233. "The natives," wrote Gibbon, "have printed it very 
well" {Corres, i., 288). Ireland was first brought under the Copyright Act by 
the 41 Geo. iii. , c. 107. See my editions of Letters of Hume to Strahan, p. 176, 
and of Letters of Johnso?i and Chesterfield, Preface, p. 37. Many of Pope's 
Poems, which sold in London at a shilling, were to be had in Dublin for a 
penny (Elwin and Courthope's Pope, vii. , 302). 

"As soon as Gibbon's Autobiography and Miscellaneous Works came out 
(writes William Maltby), they were eagerly devoured both by Porson and my- 
self. Neither of us could afford to purchase the quarto edition ; so we bought 
the Dublin reprint in octavo" (Rogers's Table Talk a?td Porsoniana, p. 303).] 

'^ [Gibbon in his Vindicatioti mentions ' ' those profane critics whose examina- 
tion always precedes, and sometimes checks, their religious assent" [Misc. 
Works, iv. , 623).] 

*[" The most grateful incense is the praise which one man of genius bestows 
on another ; we are sure that he feels the merit that he applauds " (ib. , iii. , 484).] 

5 [See ib., ii. , 200-206, for Robertson's correspondence with Gibbon.] 

'^{^Ante, p. 122. Gibbon cannot have been sincere in writing this. So 
early as 1761 he had recorded in his journal: "I read Hume's History of 
England to the reign of Henry VH. , just published, ingenious but superficial" 



196 EDWAED GIBBON [i776 

That curious and original letter will amuse the reader, and 
his gratitude should shield my free communication from the 
reproach of vanity.^ 

"Edinburgh, 18th March, 1776. 

"Dear Sir, 

^'As I ran through your volume of history with great 
avidity and impatience, I cannot forbear discovering some- 
what of the same impatience in returning you thanks for your 
agreeable present, and expressing the satisfaction which the 
performance has given me. Whether I consider the dignity 
of your style, the depth of your matter, or the extensiveness 
of your learning, I must regard the work as equally the object 
of esteem ; and I own that if I had not previously had the 
happiness of your personal acquaintance, such a performance 
from an Englishman in our age would have given me some 
surprise. You may smile at this sentiment ; but as it seems 
to me that your countrymen, for almost a whole generation, 
have given themselves up to barbarous and absurd faction, 
and have totally neglected all polite letters, I no longer ex- 
pected any valuable production ever to come from them.^ I 

[ib., i. , 139, n.). Soon after the publication of The Decline he wrote: "Our 
good English people groaned for a long time past at the superiority which 
Robertson and Hume had acquired, and as national prejudice is kept alive 
at very little expense they hastened to hoist, by dint of acclamations, their 
unworthy compatriot to the niche of these great men" (Read's Hist. Studies, 
ii., 388).] 

1 [Hume wrote to Strahan on Feb. 11, 1776: "I am glad to see my friend 
Gibbon advertised. I am confident it will be a very good book ; though I am 
at a loss to conceive where he finds materials for a volume from Trajan to 
Constantine " (Hume's Letters to Strahan, p. 311). On April 8 he wrote : " Dr. 
Smith's performance {The Wealth (T/TVa/zow.?] is another excellent work that has 
come from your press this winter ; but I have ventured to tell him that it re- 
quires too much thought to be as popular as Mr. Gibbon's" (ib., p. 315).] 

2 [Hume wrote to Strahan on Jan. 30, 1773 : " Considering the treatment I 
have met with, it would have been very silly for me at my years to continue 
writing any more ; and still more blamable to warp my principles and senti- 
ments in conformity to the prejudices of a stupid, factious nation, with whom I 
am heartily disgusted. ... It is so sunk in stupidity and barbarism and 
faction that you may as well think of Lapland for an author. The best book 
that has been written by any Enghshman these thirty years (for Dr. Franklin 
is an American) is Tristram Shandy, bad as it is" {ib., p. 255). "The treat- 
ment " he had received was appointment to high offices, a pension of ^^400 a 
year, and a higher rate of payment for his History than any previous writer had 



1776] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 197 

know it will give you pleasure (as it did me) to find that all 
the men of letters in this place concur in the admiration of 
your woi'k, and in their anxious desire of your continuing it. 

"When I heard of your undertaking (which was some time 
ago), I own I was a little curious to see how you would extri- 
cate yourself from the subject of your two last chapters. I 
think you have observed a very prudent temperament ; but it 
was impossible to treat the subject so as not to give grounds 
of suspicion against you, and you miay expect that a clamour 
will arise. This, if anything, will retard your success with the 
public ; for in every other respect your work is calculated to 
be popular. But among many other marks of decline, the 
prevalence of superstition in England ^ prognosticates the fall 
of philosophy and decay of taste ; and though nobody be 
more capable than you to revive them, you will probably find 
a struggle in your first advances. 

" I see you entertain a great doubt with regard to the 
authenticity of the poems of Ossian.'^ You are certainly right 
in so doing. It is indeed strange that any men of sense could 
have imagined it possible, that above twenty thousand verses, 
along with numberless historical facts, could have been pre- 
served by oral tradition during fifty generations, by the 
rudest, perhaps, of all the European nations, the most 
necessitous, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled. 
Where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, any 
positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Men run 
with great avidity to give their evidence in favour of what 
flatters their passions and their national prejudices. You are 
therefore over and above indulgent to us in speaking of the 
matter with hesitation. 

ever had {ib., p. 257). In "these thirty years" there had been published 
Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison, Tom Jones and Amelia, the great 
Dictionary, Tlie Rambler and Rasselas, CoUins's Odes and all Gray's Poems. 

With good reason did Bagehot write: " Half Hume's mind, or more than 
half, was distorted by his hatred of England and his love of France" [Biog. 
Studies, i., 252).] 

1 [Hume refers, I believe, to the great Methodist movement. It had been 
ridiculed five years earlier by Smollett in Humphry Clinker, and three years 
earlier by Graves in The Spiritual Quixote.~\ 

2 [See Appendix 36.] 



198 EDWARD GIBBON [i777 

" I must inform you that we all are very anxious to hear 
that you have fully collected the materials for your second 
volume, and that you are even considerably advanced in the 
composition of it. I speak this more in the name of my 
friends than in my own ; as I cannot expect to live so long as 
to see the publication of it. Your ensuing volume will be 
more delicate than the preceding, but I trust in your prudence 
for extricating you from the difficulties ; and, in all events, 
you have courage to despise the clamour of bigots. 

I am, with great regard. 
Dear Sir, 
Your most obedient and most humble Servant, 
David Hume." 

Some weeks afterwards I had the melancholy pleasure of 
seeing Mr. Hume in his passage through London ; his body 
feeble, his mind firm. On the 25th of August of the same 
year (1776) he died, at Edinburgh, the death of a philo- 
sopher. ^ 

My second excursion to Paris was determined by the 
pressing invitation of M. and Madame Necker, who had 
visited England in the preceding summer.^ On my arrival 
I found M. Necker Director-general of the finances, in the 
first bloom of power and popularity. His private fortune 
enabled him to support a liberal establishment, and his wife, 
whose talents and virtues I had long admired, was admirably 
qualified to preside in the conversation of her table and 

^ [For Adam Smith's account of his death see Hume's Letters to Strahan, 
Preface, p. 34. See also Boswell's Johnson, iii., 153. To call Hume a philo- 
sopher was indeed high praise, for Gibbon says of one of the Greek Emperors, 
that ' ' he pronounced with truth that a prince and a philosopher are the two most 
eminent characters of human society " ( The Decline, vi., 457).] 

2 [" London, May 20, 1776. At present I am very busy with the Neckers. I 
live with her just as I used to do twenty years ago \_ante, p. 106], laugh at her 
Paris varnish, and oblige her to become a simple reasonable Suissesse " {Corres., 
i. , 282). He arrived in Paris on May 10, 1777, and returned to London on Nov. 
o,{ib., i., 311, 321). His step-mother, he wrote, "started two very ingenious 
objections " to his journey. " ist, that I shall be confined, or put to death, by 
the priests, and 2ndly, that I shall sully my moral character by making love 
to Necker's wife" (ib., i., 305). For his reassuring reply to Mrs. Gibbon see 
ib., p. 306.] 



1777] MEMOIKS OF MY LIFE 199 

drawing-room. As their friend, I was introduced to the 
best company of both sexes ; to the foreign ministers of all 
nations, and to the first names and characters of France ; 
who distinguished me by such marks of civility and kindness, 
as gratitude will not suffer me to forget, and modesty will not 
allow me to enumerate.^ The fashionable suppers often broke 
into the morning hours ^ ; yet I occasionally consulted the 
Royal Library, and that of the x\bbey of St. Germain, and in 
the free use of their books at home I had always reason to 
praise the liberality of those institutions. The society of men 
of letters I neither courted nor declined ; but I was happy in 
the acquaintance of M. de Buffon, who united with a sublime 
genius the most amiable simplicity of mind and manners. "^ 
At the table of my old friend, M. de Foncemagne,* I was 
involved in a dispute with the Abbe de Mably ; and his 
jealous irascible spirit revenged itself on a work which he was 
incapable of reading in the original.^ 

As I might be partial in my own cause, I shall transcribe 
the words of an unknown critic,^ observing only, that this 
dispute had been preceded by another on the English con- 
stitution, at the house of the Countess de Froulay, an old 
Jansenist lady. 

" Vous etiez chez M. de Foncemagne, mon cher Theodon, 
le jour que M. TAbbe de Mably et M. Gibbon y dinerent en 
grande compagnie. La conversation roula presque entierement 
sur I'histoire. L'Abbe etant un profond politique, la tourna 
sur r administration, quand on fut au dessert : et comme par 

1 [See Appendix 37. ] 

2 [" Paris, June 16, 1777. After decking myself out with silks and silver, the 
ordinary establishment of coach, lodging, servants, eating and pocket expenses 
does not exceed sixty pounds per month. Yet I have two footmen in handsome 
liveries behind my coach, and my apartment is hung with damask " (Co7'res., i., 
313). 

"Aug. II. To the great admiration of the French, I regularly dine and 
regularly sup, drink a dish of strong coffee after each meal, and find my stomach 
a Citizen of the World " {ib. , p. 318).] 

^[Anie, p. 152.] •* [/i^. , p. 153.] 5 [See Appendix 38.] 

•^["Cette refutation de la Maniere d'icrire I'Hisioire, par rabb6 de 
Mably, est de M. Gudin de La Brenellerie. . . . C'est au jeune Thtodon, I'un 
des interlocuteurs de I'Entretien de I'abb^ de Mably, que sont adress^es toutes 
les critiques que Ton fait sur las principes de son maitre " {Mimoires de Grimm, 
ed. 1814, vi., 138).] 



200 EDWAED GIBBON [i777 

caract^re, par humeui', par I'habitude d'admirer Tite Live, 
il ne prise que le systeme r6publicain, il se mit a vanter 
rexcellence des republiques ; bien persuade que le savant 
Anglois I'approuveroit en tout, et admireroit la profondeur de 
genie qui avoit fait deviner tous ces avantages k un Francois. 
Mais M. Gibbon, instruit par 1' experience des in conveniens 
d'un gouvernement populaire, ne fut point du tout de son 
avis, et il prit genereusement la defense du gouvernement 
monarchique. L'Abbe voulut le convaincre par Tite Live, et 
par quelques argumens tires de Plutarque en faveur des 
Spartiates. M. Gibbon, doue de la m^moire la plus heureuse, 
et ayant tous les faits presens k la pensee, domina bientot la 
conversation ; I'Abbe se facha, il s'emporta, il dit des choses 
dures ; I'Anglois, conservant le phlegme de son pays, prenoit 
ses avantages, et pressoit I'Abbe avec d'autant plus de succes 
que la colore le troubloit de plus en plus. La conversation 
s'echauffoit, et M. de Foncemagne la rompit en se levant de 
table, et en passant dans le salon, ou personne ne fut tente 
de la renouer." (^Supplement a la Matiiere d'ecrire I'Histoire, 
p. 125, &c.) 

Nearly two years had elapsed between the publication of 
my first and the commencement of my second volume ; and 
the causes must be assigned of this long delay. 1. After a 
short holiday, I indulged my curiosity in some studies of a 
very different nature, a course of anatomy, which was demon- 
strated by Doctor Hunter ^ ; and some lessons of chemistry,^ 

1 [In the spring of 1777 Gibbon was attending these lectures two hours every 
day (Corres., i. , 304). Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. i, 1770 {Letters, vii. , 
456) : ' ' Dr. Hunter had the impudence t'other day to pour out at his Anatomic 
lecture a more outrageous Smeltiad than Smelt himself, and imputed all our 
disgraces and ruin to the Opposition. Burke was present, and said he had 
heard of Political Aa^ithmetic, but never before of Political Anatomy." 

Leonard Smelt was sub-governor to the Prince of Wales. The Political 
Arithmetic is the title of a work by Sir William Petty.] 

2 [The study of chemistry was popular at this time. Watson, lecturing at 
Cambridge (1766-69), had crowded audiences " of persons of all ages and degrees 
in the University" [Lif^ of BisJiop Watson, i., 46, 53). Dr. Thomas Beddoes 
" was made Chemistry Reader at Oxford in 1791, attracting, he says, the largest 
class assembled in Oxford since the thirteenth century" (MacLeane's Pembroke 
College, p. 392). Chemistry was still in its infancy. Nevertheless Gibbon laments 
" that it should not yet be reduced to a state oijixity " (Auto., p. 317, «.). He 
italicises tixity, as he is using a chemical term.] 



1778] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 201 

which were delivered by Mr. Higgins. The principles of 
these sciences, and a taste for books of natural history, 
contributed to multiply my ideas and images ; and the 
anatomist and chemist may sometimes track me in their own 
snow.^ 2. I dived, perhaps too deeply, into the mud of the 
Ai'ian controversy ; and ntiany days of reading, thinking, and 
wi'iting were consumed in the pursuit of a phantom.^ 3. It 
is difficult to arrange, with order and perspicuity, the various 
transactions of the age of Constantine ; and so much was I 
displeased with the first essay, that I committed to the flames 
above fifty sheets. 4. The six months of Paris and pleasure 
must be deducted from the account. But when I resumed 
my task I felt my improvement ; I was now master of my 
style and subject, and while the measure of my daily per- 
formance was enlarged, I discovered less reason to cancel or 
correct. It has always been my practice to cast a long 
paragraph in a single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit 
it in my memory, but to suspend the action of the pen till I 
had given the last polish to my work.^ Shall I add, that I 
never found my mind more vigorous, nor my composition 
more happy, than in the winter hurry of society and parlia- 
ment ? 

Had I believed that the majority of English readers were 
so fondly attached even to the name and shadow of Christ- 
ianity ^ ; had I foreseen that the pious, the timid, and the 

1 [" He [Ben Jonson] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a 
learned plagiary of all the others ; you track him everywhere in their snow " 
(Dryden's IVorks, ed. 1892, xv. , 300).] 

2 [In ch. xxi. Horace Walpole {Letters, 'vs.., 127) wrote of a controversy 
described in ch. xlvii : " So far from being Catholic or heretic, I wished Mr. 
Gibbon had never heard of Monophysites, Nestorians, or any such fools!" 
Cardinal Newman, m.\\vi History of my Religious Opinions, ed. 1865, p. 114, 
tells how in the year 1839 he was " seriously alarmed " by the discovery that he 
was himself a Monophysite.] 

3 ["Of composition there are different methods. Some employ at once 
memory and invention, and with little intermediate use of the pen form and 
polish large masses by continued meditation, and write their productions only 
when, in their own opinion, they have completed them " (Johnson's Works, 
viii., 321 ; see post, pp. 225, 245).] 

■i [Gibbon had trusted to that "fanatical animosity against Christianity," 
writes Mackintosh, "which was so prevalent during the latter part of the 
eighteenth century " {Life of Mackintosh, i., 245). 



202 EDWARD GIBBON [i779 

prudent, would feel^ or affect to feel, with such exquisite 
sensibility ; I might, perhaps, have softened the two invidious 
chapters, which would create many enemies, and conciliate 
few friends. But the shaft was shot, the alarm was sounded, 
and I could only rejoice, that if the voice of our priests was 
clamorous and bitter, their hands were disarmed from the 
powers of persecution. I adhered to the wise resolution of 
trusting myself and my writings to the candour of the public, 
till Mr. Davies of Oxford presumed to attack, not the faith, 
but the fidelity, of the historian. ^ My Vindication, expressive 
of less anger than contempt, amused for a moment the busy 
and idle metropolis ^ ; and the most rational part of the laity, 
and even of the clergy, appear to have been satisfied of my 
innocence and accuracy. I would not print this Vindication 
in quarto, lest it should be bound and preserved with the 
History itself.^ At the distance of twelve years, I calmly 
affirm my judgment of Davies, Chelsum, &c. A victory over 
such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation.* J^hey, how- 
ever, were rewarded in this world. Poor Chelsum was indeed 
neglected ; and I dare not boast the making Dr. Watson a 

" In speaking of the 15th and i6th chapters Grote thought that they had 
been unfairly condemned, in so far as hostility to Christian tradition went. He 
regarded these chapters as falling under the legitimate treatment of an historical 
pen, and nothing further. And had they been written at the present day 
[1868] far less fuss would have been made about their mischievous tendency " 
{Life of Gj-ote, ed. 1873, p. 296).] 

1 [For Davies, Chelsum, Watson, Apthorpe, Taylor, Milner, Priestley and 
White see Appendix 39.] 

2 [For Gibbon's Vindication see Appendix 40.] 

*[His Vindication he thus concludes : " I am impatient to dismiss, and to 
dismiss For Ever, this odious controversy, with the success of which I cannot 
surely be elated ; and I have only to request that, as soon as my readers are 
convinced of my innocence, they would forget my Vindication " [ib. , iv. , 648). 

" Why then, let me ask," writes Parr, " was that Vindication republished 
by the noble Editor ? " (Parr's Wo7'ks, ii. , 577.)] 

"•[Pattison, in his Essay on Religious Tliought in England, writing of " the 
supply of evidences [of Christianity] in what for the sake of a name may be 
called the Georgian period (1750-1830) " continues : " The historical investiga- 
tion, indeed, of the Origines of Christianity is a study scarcely second in 
importance to a philosophical arrangement of its doctrines. But for a genuine 
inquiry of this nature the English writers of the period had neither the taste 
nor the knowledge. Gibbon alone approached the true difficulties, but met 
only with opponents, ' victory over whom was a sufficient humiliation ' " (Pat- 
tison's Essays, ii., 49).] 



1779] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 203 

bishop ; he is a prelate of a large mind and liberal spirit : but 
I enjoyed the pleasure of giving a Royal pension to Mr. Davies, 
and of collating Dr. Apthorpe to an archiepiscopal living. 
Their success encouraged the zeal of Taylor the Arian, and 
Milner the Methodist, with many others, whom it would be 
difficult to remember, and tedious to rehearse. The list of 
my adversaries, however, was graced with the more respectable 
names of Dr. Priestley, Sir David Dalrymple, and Dr. White ; 
and every polemic, of either university, discharged his sermon 
or pamphlet against the impenetrable silence of the Roman 
historian. In his History of the Corruptions of Christianity, Dr. 
Priestley thi'ew down his two gauntlets to Bishop Hurd and 
Mr. Gibbon. I declined the challenge in a letter exhorting 
my opponent to enlighten the world by his philosophical dis- 
coveries, and to remember that the merit of his predecessor 
Servetus is now reduced to a single passage, which indicates 
the smaller circulation of the blood through the lungs, from 
and to the heart. ^ Instead of listening to this friendly advice, 
the dauntless philosopher of Birmingham continues to fire 
away his double battery against those who believe too little, 
and those who believe too inuch. From my replies he has 
nothing to hope or fear : but his Socinian shield has re- 
peatedly been pierced by the spear of the mighty Horsley,^ 
and his trumpet of sedition ^ may at length awaken the 
magistrates of a free country. 

1 Astruc de la Structure du Cceur, i. , 'j'j, 79. — Gibbon. [This work is not in the 
British Museum. C, E. Jordan, in his Histoire d'un Voyage Littiraire, Hague, 
1735, p. 170, who in 1733 found all Servetus's works in the library of Dr. Mead 
(Boswell's Johnson, iii. , 355, «.), writes: "On pretend trouver la circulation 
du sang dans son Restitutio Chi-istianismi ". Jordan, after quoting the 
passage, says " qu'il ne parait pas, par ce passage, d'une maniere fort claire, 
qu'il ait connu le secret de la circulation du sang. L'amour que nous avons 
pour les Anciens fait que nous croions tout trouver chez eux. L'on croit voir 
le systfeme de la circulation du sang dans Ciceron. Voyez la page iioo De Natura 
Deorum, de I'^dition de Verburg."] 

-[In the first edition, " by the spear of Horsley " ; in the second, " by the 
mighty spear of Horsley ". For Horsley see Appendix 41.] 

3 ["When the public peace was distracted by heresy and schism, the sacred 
orators sounded the trumpet of discord, and perhaps of sedition ' ' ( The Decline, 
ii. , 327). 

George HI. said of Lord Chatham in 1775 : " When decrepitude or death 
puts an end to him as a trumpet of sedition," etc. (I have mislaid the 
reference. )] 



204 EDWARD GIBBON [i779 

The profession and rank of Sir David Dalrymple (now a 
Lord of Session ^) have given a more decent colour to his 
style. But he scrutinizes each separate passage of the two 
chapters with the dry minuteness of a special pleader ; and 
as he is always solicitous to make, he may have succeeded 
sometimes in finding a flaw.^ In his Annals of Scotland^ 
he has shown himself a diligent collector and an accurate 
critic.*^ 

I have praised, and I still praise, the eloquent sermons 
which were preached in St. Mary's pulpit at Oxford by Dr. 
White. If he assaulted me with some degree of illiberal 
acrimony, in such a place, and before such an audience, he 
was obliged to speak the language of the country. I smiled 
at a passage in one of his private letters to Mr. Badcock ; 
"The part where we encounter Gibbon must be brilliant and 
striking". 

In a sermon preached before the university of Cambridge,* 
Dr. Edwards complimented a work, "which can perish only 
with the language itself" ; and esteems the author a formidable 
enemy. He is, indeed, astonished that more learning and 
ingenuity has not been shown in the defence of Israel ; that 
the prelates and dignitaries of the church (alas, good man !) 
did not vie with each other, whose stone should sink the 
deepest in the forehead of this Goliah.^ 

" But the force of truth will oblige us to confess, that in 
the attacks which have been levelled against our sceptical 
historian, we can discover but slender traces of profound and 
exquisite erudition, of solid criticism and accurate investiga- 
tion ; but we are too frequently disgusted by vague and 



1 [The Lords of Session are the Judges of Scotland. Sir David Dalrymple 
is better known to the readers of Boswell as Lord Hailes.] 

2 [He published in 1786 An hiquiry into the Secondary Causes which Mr. 
Gibbon has assigned for the rapid growth of Christianity.'^ 

•^ [See Boswell's Johnson, iii. , 404, for Johnson's praise of their exactness.] • 
"1 [ The Jewish and Heathen Rejection of the Christian Miracles. Preached 

before the University of Cambridge, March 7, 1790. By Thomas Edwards, 

LL.D.] 

•5 [Gohath.] 



1779] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 205 

inconclusive reasoning ; by unseasonable banter and senseless 
witticisms ; by imbitbered bigotry and enthusiastic jargon ; 
by futile cavils and illiberal invectives. Proud and elated by 
the weakness of his antagonists, he condescends not to handle 
the sword of controversy." ^ 

Let me frankly own that I was startled at the first discharge 
of ecclesiastical ordnance ; but as soon as I found that this 
empty noise was mischievous only in the intention, my fear 
was converted into indignation ; and every feeling of indigna- 
tion or curiosity has long since subsided in pure and placid 
indifference. 2 

The prosecution of my History was soon afterwards checked 
by another controversy of a very different kind. At the 
request of the Lord Chancellor,^ and of Lord Weymouth,* 
then Secretary of State, I vindicated, against the French 
manifesto,^ the justice of the British arms. The whole 
correspondence of Lord Stormont,^ our late ambassador at 
Paris, was submitted to my inspection, and the M^moire 
Justificatif, which I composed in French, was first approved 
by the Cabinet Ministers, and then delivered as a State paper 
to the Courts of Europe.^ The style and manner are praised 

1 [The passage continues : ' ' but darts forth the envenomed shafts of sarcastic 
ridicule : he approaches indeed the camp, and defies the armies of the living 
God ; yet he approaches not hke Goliah [Gohath], to call forth a champion, but 
to insult and triumph over his vanquished enemies" {Monthly Review, Oct. 
1790, p. 237).] 

2 [For a list of the principal replies to Gibbon see The Declitie, ed. Milman, 
ed. 1854, i., 107. 

" Mr. Gibbon retained his resentments more stedfastly, and felt them more 
painfully, than his discretion or his pride would suffer him to acknovs^ledge. 
The softness of his expressions often gave a sharper edge to the severity of his 
invectives, and the gaiety of ridicule is often employed by him, not as a check 
but as a disguise to the fierceness of anger" (Parr's Works, ii., 575).] 

3 [Lord Thurlow. ] ^ [First Marquis of Bath. ] 

5 [A translation of it is published in the Annual Register ior: 1779, i., 390.] 

^ [On Oct. 27, 1779, he was made Secretary of State. In 1793 he succeeded 
his uncle as second Earl of Mansfield.] 

''[Gibbon dates it May, 1779 {Auto., p. 319). It is published in the original 
in Gibbon's Misc. Works, v. , i, and as a translation in the Annual Register for 

1779. i- . 397)- 

Lord Sheffield writes that Gibbon spoke to him of it "with some pleasure, 
observing that it had been translated even into the Turkish language" {Misc. 
Works, preface, p. 19). 
According to Jeremy Bentham, his friend John Lind "got an order to draw 



206 EDWARD GIBBON [i779 

by Beaumarchais himself, who, in his private quarrel, attempted 
a reply ^ ; but he flatters me, by ascribing the memoir to 
Lord Stormont '^ ; and the grossness of his invective betrays 
the loss of temper and of wit ; he acknowledged, that le style 
ne serait pas sans grace, ni la logique sans jiistesse, etc., if the 
facts were true which he undertakes to disprove,^ For these 
facts my credit is not pledged ; I spoke as a lawyer from my 
brief, but the veracity of Beaumarchais may be estimated 
from the assertion that France, by the treaty of Paris (1763) 
was limited to a certain number of ships of war. On the 
application of the Duke of Choiseul, he was obliged to retract 
this daring falsehood.* 

Among the honourable connections which I had formed, I 
may justly be proud of the friendship of Mr. Wedderburne, 
at that time Attorney-General, who now illustrates the title 
of Lord Loughborough, and the office of Chief Justice of the 
Common Pleas. ^^ By his strong recommendation, and the 



up a declaration against the revolted colonies. There were two such declara- 
tions. Gibbon drew up the other. Lind for his Manifesto got £'e,o a year for 
each of his sisters. It was not well done" (Bentham's Works, x., 55).] 

1 [Beaumarchais and his partners were charged with despatching to America 
in January 1777, when we were still at peace with France, nine large ships 
laden with arms (Gibbon's Misc. Works, v., 18). He gloried in what he had 
done {(Euvres de Beaumarchais, ed. 1809, v., 20, 24).] 

2[/^., p. 2.] 

** [Beaumarchais begins by saying that during Lord Stormont's residence at 
Paris the American deputies, whenever any false report was circulated, used to 
say : ' ' Ne croyez par cela, Monsieur, cest du Stormotit tout pur" . He continues 
that the style, " bien qu'un peu trainant dans la traduction, ne manquerait pas 
de graces, ni la logique de justesse, si I'^crivain," etc. {ib., p. 43).] 

^[The statement does not appear in his Observations as published in his 
collected works. Anthony Storer wrote to W. Eden on Nov. 29, 1787 : " The 
French are now paying for the American war, which Necker told Gibbon had 
cost them seventy-one millions sterling" [Auckland Corres., i., 449). This 
waste of treasure hurried on and intensified the French Revolution.] 

5 [He was made Lord Chancellor in 1793, and Earl of Rosslyn in 1801. 
"I know nothing of Pitt as a war minister," wrote Gibbon in 1793, "but it 
affords me much satisfaction that the intrepid wisdom of the new Chancellor is 
introduced into the Cabinet" (Corres., ii. , 371). Horace Walpole [Letters, vii. , 
506), writing on Jan. 27, 1781, of the new volume of The Decline, says : " There 
is flattery to the Scots that would choke anything but Scots, who can gobble 
feathers as readily as thistles. David Hume and Adam Smith are legislators 
and sages, but the homage is intended for his patron. Lord Loughborough." 
The references are to The Decline, ii. , 483; iii., 44. See also ib., vi., 311 ; vii., 



1780] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 207 

favourable disposition of Lord North, I was appointed one of 
the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations ^ ; and my 
private income was enlarged by a clear addition of between 
seven and eight hundred pounds a year. The fancy of an 
hostile orator may paint, in the strong colours of ridicule, 
"the perpetual virtual adjournment, and the unbroken sitting 
vacation of the Board of Trade ".^ But it must be allowed 
that our duty was not intolerably severe, and that I enjoyed 
many days and weeks of repose, without being called away 
from my library to the office. My acceptance of a place 
provoked some of the leaders of opposition, with whom I had 
lived in habits of intimacy ; and I was most unjustly accused 
of deserting a party, in which I had never enlisted.^ 

The aspect of the next session of parliament was stormy 
and perilous ; county meetings, petitions, and committees of 
correspondence, announced the public discontent ^ ; and in- 
stead of voting with a triumphant majority, the friends of 
government were often exposed to a struggle, and sometimes 
to a defeat. The House of Commons adopted Mr. Dunning's 
motion, " That the influence of the Crown had increased, was 

215. In another passage (vi. , 320) Gibbon describes Loughborough as " a 
learned Lord, who, with an accurate and discerning eye, has surveyed the 
philosophic history of law. By his studies posterity might be enriched ; the 
merit of the orator and the judge can he. felt only by his contemporaries." 

Wedderburne's "skilful eloquence" did much to turn Benjamin Franklin 
into one of the bitterest enemies of that country which he had been wont to 
speak of as "home" [Letters of Hume to Strakan, p. 226). Johnson spoke of 
him and John Home as two Scotchmen whom " Lord Bute had to go on 
errands for him" (Boswell's Johnson, ii., 354). When the news came to 
Windsor Castle of his death "the King inquired again and again whether it 
might not be a false report. When assured that there could be no mistake 
about it. His Majesty felt free to e.xclaim, 'Then he has not left a greater 
knave behind him in my dominions'" (Stanhope's Pitt, iv. , 251). For an 
instance of his knavery see ib., iii. , 264-271. See also ante, p. 193, and post, 
p. 261, n.'\ 

1 [Gibbon informed his step-mother of the appointment on July 3, 1779 
(Corres, i. , 366). According to the Pari. Hist. , xviii. , 7 (which must be mistaken), 
the new writ on his taking office was issued on June 3.] 

2 [See Appendix 42.] °[-^i-, 43-] 

* [" The business of public meetings, of petitions to parliament, and of associa- 
tions for the redress of grievances, was commenced during the [Christmas] 
recess." Yorkshire and Middlesex led the way. In each of these counties "a 
committee of correspondence and association " was appointed. Their example 
was soon followed by other counties {Annual Register., 1780, L, 85).] 



208 EDWAKD GIBBON [i780 

increasing, and ought to be diminished," ^ and Mr. Burke's 
bill of reform was framed with skill, introduced with eloquence, 
and supported by numbers. Our late president, the American 
Secretary of State, very narrowly escaped the sentence of 
proscription ; but the unfortunate Board of Trade was abolished 
in the committee by a small majority (207 to 199) of eight 
votes. The storm, however, blew over for a time ; a large 
defection of country gentlemen eluded the sanguine hopes of 
the patriots : the Lords of Trade were revived ; administration 
recovered their strength and spirit ; and the flames of London, 
which were kindled by a mischievous madman,^ admonished 
all thinking men of the danger of an appeal to the people. 
In the premature dissolution which followed this session of 
parliament I lost my seat.^ Mr. Elliot was now deeply 
engaged in the measures of opposition, and the electors 



i[On April 6, 1780 — "a day," wrote Horace Walpole {Letters, vii., 345), 
"that ought for ever to be a red-lettered day" — Dunning made this motion. 
It was carried by 233 to 215 {Pari. Hist., xxi. , 340-67). On May 7, 1783, Pitt 
asserted in the House ' ' that a secret influence of the Crown was sapping the 
very foundation of liberty by corruption. . . . The House had been base enough 
to feed the influence that enslaved its members, and thus was at one time the 
parent and the offspring of corruption " {ib., xxiii. , 830). 

Wilberforce in his Sketch of Pitt lamented that Pitt, when in 1783 he first 
became Prime Minister, ' ' had not generously resolved to govern his country 
by principle rather than by influence " {Private Papers of W. Wilberforce, p. 73). 
For Fox's attack on influence and on Pitt on Dec. 17, 1783, see Pari. Hist., 
xxiv., 206-20. "For God's ; sake," he said, "strangle us not in the very 
moment we look for success and triumph by an infamous string of bedchamber 
janissaries" {ib., p. 220).] 

2 [Lord George Gordon. The riots which bear his name began on June 2, 
and through the incredible weakness of the Ministers lasted nearly a week 
(Boswell's Johnson, iii., 428 ; Letters of Johnson, ii., 166). On June 27 Gibbon 
had the audacity to write : ' ' The measures of government have been seasonable 
and vigorous " {Corres, i., 382). " Lord North," said the King, "was actuated 
in every instance by a desire of present ease at the risk of any future difficulty. 
This he instanced in the American War and in the riots of 1780 " (Russell's Life 
of Fox, ed. 1866, ii. , 5). 

' ' It was industriously circulated that the Opposition were the secret authors 
of the late riots." A nobleman, it was reported, had been killed among the 
rioters and his body thrown into the Thames to prevent discovery. It was with 
astonishment that he was beheld in the House of Peers the following winter. 
" Popular fury seemed the greatest of all possible evils. And administration 
gathered power from a tumult which appeared to threaten the subversion of all 
government" {Ann. Reg., 1780, i. , 200; 1781, i. , 137-38, 140).] 

s[The dissolution on Sept. i, 1780, came " like a thunder-clap"* {Anu. Reg.^ 
1781, i., 141).] 



1781] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 209 

of Leskeard are commonly of the same opinion as Mr. 
Elliot.i 

In this interval of my senatorial life, I published the second 
and third volumes of the Decline and Fall.^ My ecclesiastical 
history still breathed the same spirit of freedom ; but Protes- 
tant zeal is more indifferent to the characters and contro- 
versies of the fourth and fifth centuries. My obstinate silence 
had damped the ardour of the polemics. Dr. Watson, the 
most candid of my adversaries, assured me that he had no 
thoughts of renewing the attack, and my impartial balance 
of the virtues and vices of Julian was generally praised.^ 
This truce was interrupted only by some animadversions of 
the Catholics of Italy, and by some angry letters from Mr. 
Travis, who made me personally responsible for condemning, 
with the best critics, the spurious text of the three heavenly 
witnesses. 



1 [The electors, it seems probable, were only brought over to his opinion at a 
cost of ^2,400 each election (Corres., i., 228). 

Mr. W. P. Courtney, writing of the representation of Liskeard, says : " Then 
[1722] one of the house of Eliot, of Port Eliot, appeared upon the scene, the 
earliest evidence of a connection which lasted uninterruptedly, though not 
without an occasional struggle for emancipation, until 1832" {Pari. Representa- 
tion of Cornwall, p. 258). 

Bentham, who met Eliot at Bowood (Lord Shelburne's seat) in the summer 
of 1781, described him as " modest enough in his conversation about politics, 
but desponding. He says he scarce ever looks into a paper, nor dares he, for 
fear of ill news. . . . He brought in seven members the last time. Gibbon he 
brought in for private friendship ; though, as it turned out, much to his regret " 
(Bentham's Works, x. , 96, loi). In the division on Dunning's motion. Gibbon 
voted with the Government in the minority, while Eliot and Samuel Salt, 
Gibbon's fellow-member for Liskeard, were in the majority (jPiSsr/. Hist., xxi., 
368). 

Gibbon had the impudence to write: "Mr. Elliot, actuated, as it should 
seem, by the Demon of Party, has renounced me " {Corres. , i. , 386). Eliot sup- 
ported Shelburne and Pitt against the Coalition Ministry [see. fast, p. 214).] 

2 [They were published on March i, 1781 [Co7-res., i., 396). On Feb. i, 1780, 
Strahan and Cadell published as a frontispiece to the quarto edition an engrav- 
ing by Hall of Reynolds's portrait of Gibbon, with the superscription : " Edward 
Gibbon Esqr. born the 8th May, 1737". According to Lord Sheffield, "by 
far the best likeness of him that exists is that painted by Mr. Warton in 1774, 
before he became very corpulent " {Misc. Works, Preface, p. 11). For an 
engraving from it see ib., frontispiece.] 

'^ [Dr. Robertson wrote to him about Julian : " I am much struck with the 
felicity wherewith you have described that odd infusion of Heathen fanaticism 
and philosophical coxcombry which mingled with the great qualities of a hero 
and a genius " {Misc. Works, ii., 250).] 

14 



210 EDWARD GIBBON [i78i 

The piety or prudence of my Italian translator has provided 
an antidote against the poison of his original.^ The 5th and 
7th volumes are armed with five letters from an anonymous 
divine to his friends, Foothead and Kirk, two English stu- 
dents at Rome : and this meritorious service is commended 
by Monsignore Stonor, a prelate of the same nation, who 
discovers much venonx in the jiuid and nervous style of 
Gibbon. 2 The critical essay at the end of the third volume 
was furnished by the Abbate Nicola Spedalieri, whose zeal 
has gradually swelled to a more solid confutation in two 
quarto volumes. — Shall I be excused for not having read 
them } 

The brutal insolence of Mr. Travis's challenge can only be 
excused by the absence of learning, judgment, and humanity ; 
and to that excuse he has the fairest or foulest pretension.^ 
Compared with Archdeacon Travis, Chelsum and Davies 
assume the title of respectable enemies. 

The bigoted advocate of popes and monks may be turned 
over even to the bigots of Oxford ; and the wretched Travis 
still smarts under the lash of the merciless Porson. I con- 
sider Mr. Porson's answer to Archdeacon Travis as the most 
acute and accurate piece of criticism which has appeared 
since the days of Bentley. His strictures are founded in 
argument, enriched with learning, and enlivened with wit ; 
and his adversary neither deserves nor finds any quarter at 
his hands. The evidence of the three heavenly witnesses 
would now be rejected in any court of justice : but prejudice 
is blind, authority is deaf, and our vulgar bibles will ever 



1 [Nine volumes of the Italian translation, to the end of ch. xxxviii., were 
published at Pisa in 1779-86, A tenth volume was printed, but not published, 
and was afterwards destroyed (see MS. entry in vol. i. of the copy in the Brit. 
Mus.). It has Gibbon's bookplate and was bought at Lausanne about 1855. 
A complete edition was published at Milan in 1821-24. Dean Milman could 
never get sight of the Italian translation (The Decline, ed. 1854, i. , 109, n.).'] 

2 [On June 12, 1784, Kirk wrote to the anonymous divine : ' ' Monsig. Stonor 
approves of your having published a precaution, that heedless readers may not 
be deceived with his fluid and nervous style, and with the fame that he has 
acquired " (Istoria della Decadenza, etc., ed, 1783, vii., 202),] 

3 [See Appendix 44.] 



1781] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 211 

be polluted by this spurious text, " sedet cetermtmque sedehit i." 
The more learned ecclesiastics will indeed have the seci*et 
satisfaction of reprobating in the closet what they read in 
the church. 

I perceived, and without surprise, the coldness and even 
prejudice of the town ; nor could a whisper escape my ear, 
that, in the judgment of many readers, my continuation was 
much inferior to the original attempts.^ An author who can- 
not ascend will always appear to sink : envy was now pre- 
pared for my reception, and the zeal of my religious, was 
fortified by the motive of my political, enemies.^ Bishop 
Newton, in writing his own life, was at full liberty to declare 
how much he himself and two eminent brethren were dis- 
gusted by Mr. G.'s prolixity, tediousness, and affectation. 
But the old man should not have indulged his zeal in a 
false and feeble charge against the historian,* who had 
faithfully and even cautiously rendered Dr. Burnet's ^ meaning 
by the alternative " of sleep or repose ". That philosophic 
divine supposes, that, in the period between death and the 
resurrection, human souls exist without a body, endowed with 
internal consciousness, but destitute of all active or passive 
connection with the external world. " Secundum communem 
dictionem sacrae scripturae, mors dicitur somnus, et morientes 
dicuntur abdormire, quod innuere mihi videtur statum mortis 
esse statum quietis, silentii, et depyao-tas " {De Statu Mortuorum, 
ch. v., p. 98 [ed. 1720, p. 9Q]). 

I was however encouraged by some domestic and foreign 

1 \_^neid, vi., 617. 

" Is fixed by Fate on his eternal chair." 

(Dryden.) 
For the disappearance of this pollution see Appendix 44]. 

2 [Horace Walpole wrote of the second and third volumes : ' ' Though these 
volumes are not polished like the first, you see that he is never thinking of his 
subject, but intending to make his periods worthy of himself. ... I was 
charmed, as I owned, with the enamel of the first volume, but I am tired by 
this rhetorical diction, and wish again for Bishop Burnet's And so " (Walpole's 
Letters, viii. , 15).] 

3 [" The patriots," Gibbon wrote, " wish to damn the work and the author " 
{Corres., i. , 398).] 

4 [See Appendix 45.] ^ [Thomas Burnet.] 



212 EDWARD GIBBON [iTsi 

testimonies of applause ; and the se<;ond and third volumes 
insensibly rose in sale and reputation to a level with the first. 
But the public is seldom wrong ; and I am inclined to believe 
that, especially in the beginning, they are more prolix and 
less entertaining than the first ; my effoi'ts had not been 
relaxed by success, and I had rather deviated into the 
opposite fault of minute and superfluous diligence. On the 
Continent, my name and writings were slowly diffused ; a 
French translation of the first volume had disappointed the 
booksellers of Paris ^ ; and a passage in the third was con- 
strued as a personal reflection on the reigning monarch. ^ 

Before I could apply for a seat at the general election the 
list was already full ; but Lord North's promise was sincere, 
his recommendation was effectual, and I was soon chosen on 
a vacancy for the borough of Lymington, in Hampshire.^ In 
the first session of the new parliament, administration stood 
their ground ; their final overthrow was reserved for the 
second. The American war had once been the favourite of 
the country : the pride of England was irritated by the 
resistance of her colonies, and the executive power was driven 

1 [Gibbon had to pay two guineas and a half postage on the French transla- 
tion of the first seven chapters sent from Paris ( Corres. ; i. , 296). Johnson was 
charged £7 los. for a packet by the post from Lisbon ['Rosvf&Ws Johnso7z , iii., 
22).] 

2 It may not be generally known that Louis XVI. is a great reader, and a 
reader of English books. On perusing a passage of my History which seems 
to compare him to Arcadius or Honorius, he expressed his resentment to the 

Prince of B , from whom the intelligence was conveyed to me. I shall 

neither disclaim the allusion, nor examine the likeness ; but the situation of the 
late King of France excludes all suspicion of flattery ; and I am ready to 
declare that the concluding observations of my third volume were written before 
his accession to the throne. — Gibbon. 

[The Memoir in which this note occurs is dated March 2, 1791. By that 
time Louis XVI. was merely a king in name. He ascended the throne on May 
10, 1774, nearly seven years before the publication of the third volume. The 
following is the passage which excited his resentment : " Europe is now divided 
into twelve powerful, though unequal, kingdoms, three respectable common- 
wealths, and a variety of smaller, though independent, states : the chances of 
royal and ministerial talents are multiplied, at least with the number of its 
rulers ; and a Julian or Semiramis may reign in the North, while Arcadius 
and Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the House of Bourbon ". In a 
later edition, as Professor Bury points out. Gibbon altered " House of Bourbon " 
into " South " [The Decline, iv. , 165, 529). Four pages after this attack on the 
Bourbons he ended the first half of the History by a compliment to George III.] 

•'[He was chosen at the end of June, 1781 (Corres., ii., i).] 



1782] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 213 

by national clamour into the most vigorous and coercive 
measures.^ But the length of a fruitless contest, the loss of 
armies, the accumulation of debt and taxes, and the hostile 
confederacy of France, Spain, and Holland, indisposed the 
public to the American war, and the persons by whom it was 
conducted ; the representatives of the people, followed, at a 
slow distance, the changes of their opinion, and the ministers 
who refused to bend, were broken by the tempest. As soon 
as Lord North had lost, or was about to lose, a majority 
in the House of Commons, he surrendered his office, and 
retired to a private station, with the tranquil assurance of a 
clear conscience and a cheerful temper : the old fabric was 
dissolved, and the posts of government were occupied by the 
victorious and veteran troops of opposition.^ The Lords of 
Trade were not immediately dismissed, but the Board itself 
was abolished by Mr. Burke's bill, which decency had com- 
pelled the patriots ^ to revive * ; and I was stripped of a con- 
venient salary, after having enjoyed it about three years. 

So flexible is the title of my History, that the final aera 
might be fixed at my own choice ; and I long hesitated 
whether I should be content with the three volumes, the fall 
of the Western empire, which fulfilled my first engagement 
with the public. In this interval of suspense, nearly a 

1 [See Appendix 46.] 

- [Grimm [Mdmoires, ed. 1814, v. , 328) points out that in the Rockingham 
Ministry which followed Lord North's there were four descendants of Henry IV. 
of France: the Duke of Grafton, Lord Privy Seal ; Charles Fox, Secretary of 
State ; the Duke of Richmond, Master of the Ordnance; and Admiral Keppel, 
First Lord of the Admiralty.] 

i* [Gibbon wrote on Jan. 7, 1779: " I do assure you that I have not any 
claims to the injurious epithet of ' a patriot' " [Con-es., i., 354). For " patriot " 
see Boswell's /oAwjora, iv. , 87.] 

^ [This is a placeman's sneer. In the great distress of his country Gibbon had 
received ;r^7So a year for almost nominal services (Corres., ii., 36). "The 
annual saving, which would be yearly increasing," effected by Burke's bill was 
^72,000; ;^i2,6oo of which was due to the abolition of the Board of Trade 
{Pari. Hist., xxii., 1412 ; Ajin. Reg., 1782, i., 180; Rockingham Memoirs, ii., 
399). See also ante, p. 208, and/yj/, p. 215). 

Pitt revived the Board in 1786, putting at the head of it Charles Jenkinson 
(Lord Hawkesbury, afterwards first Earl of Liverpool), "the King's friend," 
the leader of " the reptiles who burrow imder the throne," to use Fox's words 
{Pari. Hist., xxiv., 217). Pitt, however, abolished many sinecures (Stanhope's 
Pitt, i., 306 ; iv., 416 ; Ann. Reg., 1786, i., 219).] 



214 EDWAED GIBBON [i782 

twelvemonth, I returned by a natural impulse to the Greek 
authors of antiquity ; I read with new pleasure the Iliad and 
the Odyssey, the Histories of Herodotus, Thucydides, and 
Xenophon, a large portion of the tragic and comic theatre 
of Athens^ and many interesting dialogues of the Socratic 
school. Yet in the luxury of freedom I began to wish for 
the daily task, the active pursuit, which gave a value to every 
book, and an object to every inquiry ; the preface of a new 
edition announced my design,^ and I dropped without reluc- 
tance from the age of Plato to that of Justinian. The original 
text of Procopius and Agathias ^ supplied the events and even 
the characters of his reign : but a laborious winter was devoted 
to the Codes, the Pandects, and the modern interpreters, 
before I presumed to form an abstract of the civil law,^ My 
skill was improved by practice, my diligence perhaps was 
quickened by the loss of office ; and, excepting the last 
chapter, I had finished the fourth volume before I sought 
a retreat on the banks of the Leman Lake. 

It is not the purpose of this narrative to expatiate on the 
public or secret history of the times : the schism which 
followed the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, the 
appointment of the Earl of Shelburne, the resignation of 
Mr. Fox, and his famous coalition with Lord North.* But I 
may assert, with some degree of assurance, that in their 
political conflict those great antagonists had never felt any 
personal animosity to each other,^ that their reconciliation was 
easy and sincere, and that their friendship has never been 
clouded by the shadow of suspicion or jealousy. The most 
violent or venal of their respective followers embraced this 

1 [The preface was dated March i, 1782.] 

2 [For Gibbon's character of Procopius see Tlie Decline, iv., 210, and for 
' ' the false and florid rhetoric ' ' that ' ' Agathias lavished ' ' see ib. , iv. , 382. ] 

3 [For this abstract see ii. , ch. 44. In writing the reign of Frederic I. (a.d. 
1152-go) Gibbon says: "The recent discovery of the Pandects had renewed 
a science most favourable to despotism " {id. , v. , 303).] 

* [See Appendix 47.] 

5 [" The style of declamation must never be confounded with the genuine 
sense which respectable enemies entertain of each other^s merits " ( The Decline, 
v., 116).] 



1783] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 215 

fair occasion of revolt, but their alliance still commanded a 
majority in the House of Commons ; the peace was censured, 
Lord Shelburne resigned, and the two friends knelt on the 
same cushion to take the oath of Secretary of State. From a 
principle of gratitude I adhered to the coalition : my vote 
was counted in the day of battle, but I was overlooked in 
the division of the spoil. There were many claimants more 
deserving and importunate than myself ^ : the Board of Trade 
could not be restored ; and, while the list of places was 
curtailed, the number of candidates was doubled.^ An easy 
dismission to a secure seat at the Board of Customs or Excise 
was promised on the first vacancy : but the chance was 
distant and doubtful ^ ; nor could I solicit with much ardour 
an ignoble servitude, which would have robbed me of the 
most valuable of my studious hours : at the same time the 
tumult of London, and the attendance on parliament, were 
grown more irksome ; and, without some additional income, 
I could not long or prudently maintain the style of expense 
to which I was accustomed.^ 

1 [Gibbon, on May 20, 1783, wrote to Deyverdun of Lord North : " Des 
collegues plus actifs lui enl^vent les morceaux les plus friands, qui sont aussitot 
d^vorfe par la voracity de leurs cr&tures " (Corres., ii., 37). It never seems 
to have occurred to him that he was one of Lord North's " creatures". To 
Dr. Robertson he wrote on Sept. i : "If the means of patronage had not been 
so strangely reduced by our modern reformers, I am persuaded Lord Lough- 
borough's constant and liberal kindness would more than satisfy the moderate 
desires of a philosopher" (Stewart's Robertson, p. 364). On May 28, 1784, he 
wrote : ' ' The reign of pensions and sinecures is at an end " ( Corres. , ii. , 107). 

" The reign of pensions and sinecures" was not wholly at an end. In 1802 
the Prime Minister, Addington, bestowed the Clerkship of the Pells, a sinecure 
of p^3,ooo a year, on his own son, a boy of sixteen. Pitt highly approved of the 
appointment (Stanhope's Pitt, iii., 385). Pitt himself, as Lord Warden of the 
Cinque Ports, received more than ^^3,000 a year {ib., iii., 341). He pensioned 
off his mother's housekeeper by a sinecure post of housekeeper of ;^4o, and 
later on by a better one of about ;i^i.=;o a year {ib., i., 347 ; ii. , 221). On the 
other hand in the Customs he abolished eighty-five sinecures {ib., iv. , 416).] 

2 [W. Eden wrote to Lord Loughborough on July 24, 1782: "Burke's 
foolish bill has made it a very difficult task for any set of men either to form 
or maintain an Administration " {Auckland Corres., i. , 12).] 

•^ [Lord Sheffield wrote to William Eden on June 13, 1783 : " Gibbon and I 
have been walking about the room, and cannot find any employment we 
should like in the intended establishment [of the Prince of Wales]. He agrees 
with me that the place of dancing-master might be one of the most eligible for 
him, but he rather inclines to be painter, in hopes of succeeding Ramsay [as 
King's Painter]" {Auckland Co7-res., i., 53).] 

4 [See Appendix 48.] 



216 EDWARD GIBBON [i783 

From my early acquaintance with Lausanne I had always 
cherished a secret wish^ that the school of my youth might 
become the retreat of my declining age.^ A moderate for- 
tune would secure the blessings of ease, leisure, and in- 
dependence : the country, the people, the manners, the 
language, were congenial to my taste ; and I might indulge 
the hope of passing some years in the domestic society of a 
friend. After travelling with several English, ^ Mr. Deyver- 
dun was now settled at home, in a pleasant habitation, the 
gift of his deceased aunt ^ : we had long been separated, we 
had long been silent ; yet in my first letter ^ I exposed, with 
the most perfect confidence, my situation, my sentiments, 
and my designs. His immediate answer was a warm and 
joyful acceptance : the picture of our future life provoked 
my impatience ; and the terms of arrangement were short 
and simple, as he possessed the property, and I undertook 
the expense of our common house. Before I could break my 
English chain, it was incumbent on me to struggle with the 
feelings of my heart, the indolence of my temper, and the 
opinion of the world, which unanimously condemned this 
voluntary banishment. -^ In the disposal of my effects, the 
library, a sacred deposit, was alone excepted ^ : as my post- 

1 ["The beauteous and happy country where I am permitted to reside" 
{T/ie Decline, iv. , 495).] 

2 Sir Richard Worsley, Lord Chesterfield, Broderick Lord Middleton, and 
Mr. Hume, brother to Sir Abraham. — Gibbon. [See ante, p. 176.] 

^ [See Read's Hist. Studies, i. , 7 ; ii. , 297.] 
* [Dated May 20, 1783 [Corres., ii., 35).] 

5 [Lord Sheffield wrote on Aug. 7, 1783 : " Gibbon has baffled all arrange- 
ments ; possibly you may have heard of a continental scheme. It has annoyed 
me much ; and of all circumstances the most provoking is that he is right ; a 
most pleasant opportunity offered. His seat in Parliament is left in my hands. 
He is here. In short, his plan is such that it was impossible to urge anything 
against it " {Auckland Corres., i., 56). Lord Sheffield was to find a purchaser 
of Gibbon's seat for Lymington. Its value depended on the expectation of the 
duration of the parliament then sitting. The dissolution came before any 
bargain was completed {Corres., ii. , 81, 93, 99, loi).] 

6 [He sent " two immense cases of books " to Lausanne (Stewart's Robertson, 
p. 365). On Aug. 18 he wrote : " This morning my books were shipped for 
Rouen, and will reach Lausanne almost as soon as myself. On Thursday 
morning the bulk of the library moves from Bentinck Street to Downing Street 
(Lord Sheffield's) " {Carres., ii., 62). He reached Lausanne on Sept. 27 ; but 
his books "by some strange neglect" did not reach him till February, 1784 
{ib., pp. 74, 94, 97).] 



1784] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 217 

chaise moved over Westminster-bridge, I bid a long farewell 
to the " fumum et opes strepitumque Romae ^ ". My journey 
by the direct road through France ^ was not attended with 
any accident, and I arrived at Lausanne nearly twenty years 
after my second departure. Within less than three months 
the coalition struck on some hidden rocks : had I remained 
on board, I should have perished in the general shipwreck. 
Since my establishment at Lausanne, more than seven years 
have elapsed ; and if every day has not been equally soft and 
serene, not a day, not a moment, has occurred in which I have 
repented of my choice. During my absence, a long portion of 
human life, many changes had happened : my elder acquaint- 
ance had left the stage ; vii'gins were ripened into matrons, 
and children were grown to the age of manhood. But the 
same manners were transmitted from one generation to an- 
other : my friend alone was an inestimable treasure ; my name 
was not totally forgotten, and all were ambitious to welcome 
the arrival of a stranger and the return of a fellow-citizen. 
The first winter was given to a general embrace, without any 
nice discrimination of persons and characters. After a more 
regular settlement, a more accurate survey, I discovered three 
solid and permanent benefits of my new situation. 1. My 
personal freedom had been somewhat impaired by the House 
of Commons and the Board of Trade ; but I was now de- 
livered from the chain of duty and dependence, from the 
hopes and fears of political adventure : my sober mind was no 
longer intoxicated by the fumes of party, and I rejoiced in 
my escape, as often as I read of the midnight debates which 
preceded the dissolution of parliament. 2. My English 
oeconomy had been that of a solitary bachelor, who might 
afford some occasional dinners. ^ In Switzerland I enjoyed at 

1 [Horace, Odes, iii. , 29, 12. 

" Its crowds, and smoke, and opulence, and noise." 

(Francis.) 
Gibbon left London on Sept. 15 {Corres., ii. , 71).] 

2 [He went by the road he had travelled to his banishment thirty years 
earlier [ante, p. 82).] 

3 [Gibbon, writing to Lord Sheffield on Nov. 14, 1783, described him as 
having "passed the afternoon, the evening, and perhaps the night, without 



218 EDWAKD GIBBON [i784 

every meal, at every hour, the free and pleasant conversation 
of the friend of my youth ; and my daily table was always 
provided for the reception of one or two extraordinary guests. ^ 
Our importance in society is less a positive than a relative 
weight : in London I was lost in the crowd ; I ranked with 
the first farailies of Lausanne, and my style of prudent ex- 
pense enabled me to maintain a fair balance of reciprocal 
civilities. 2 3. Instead of a small house between a street and 
a stable-yard/ I began to occupy a spacious and convenient 
mansion, connected on the north side with the city, and open 

sleep or food, stifled in a close room by the heated respiration of six hundred 
politicians, inflamed by party and passion, and tired of the repetition of dull 
nonsense, which, in that illustrious assembly, so far outweighs the proportion of 
reason and eloquence" [Corres., ii., 8o). Six hundred is an exaggeration. 
There were five hundred and fifty-eight members. In very few divisions four 
hundred and fifty voted.] 

i["Deyverdun, who is somewhat of an Epicurean philosopher, understands 
the management of a table, and we frequently invite a guest or two to share our 
luxurious, but not extravagant, repasts" [ib., ii. , 78). Gibbon sent to London 
for a set of Wedgwood China, " adequate to a plentiful table". Off this set 
General Read dined in 1879 at M. de S^very's house at Mex, near Lausanne. 
"It is still in general use. Gibbon's supply of table-linen was so large in 
quantity and excellent in quality that his tablecloths and napkins are still in use " 
[Hist. Studies, ii., 479).] 

2[Deyverdun, in 1783, urging Gibbon to settle at Lausanne, wrote : " Vous 
serez d'abord I'homme k la mode, et je vols d'ici que vous soutiendrez fort bien 
ce role, sans vous en ficher, dtit-on un peu vous surfaire. Je sens bien que tu me 
flattes, mais tu me fais plaisir, est peut-etre le meilleur vers de Destouches " 
{Corres., ii. , 43). 

Miss Holroyd wrote at Lausanne in 1791 : " It is a proof how much pleasure 
flattery gives the most sensible people. This is the only advantage this place 
can have over England for iVIr. Gibbon. However he is so much attached to 
the place and the people, that he cannot bear the slightest joke about them " 
[Girlhood of M. J. Holroyd, p. 63). 

Gibbon wrote of a long fit of the gout in 1785 : " In London my confine- 
ment was sad and solitary ; the many forgot my existence when they saw me 
no longer at Brookes's. ... I was proud and happy if I could prevail on 
Elmsley to enliven the dulness of the evening. Here the objects are nearer, 
and more distinct ; and I myself am an object of much larger magnitude. . . . 
Enuring three months I have had round my chair a succession of agreeable men 
and women, who came with a smile and vanished at a nod" [Corres., ii. , 134). 

Malone, one day in 1783, found Dr. Johnson, when confined by illness, 
roasting apples and reading the History of Birmingham. " These," he said, 
"are some of the solitary expedients to which we are driven by sickness" 
(Boswell's /cA^JWz, iv., 218, «.).] 

3 [He spoke very differently of his house (7, Bentinck Street) when he took 
it. "I am got into the delightful mansion," he wrote to his step-mother. " My 
own new, clean, comfortable, dear house, which I like better every week I pass 
in it." "My little palace, which is absolutely the best house in London." 
" Mine own dear library, and mine own dear parlour" [Corres., i. , 179, 181, 
183, 269).] 



1784] MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 219 

on the south to a beautiful and boundless horizon. ^ A garden 
of four acres had been laid out by the taste of Mr. Deyverdun : 
from the garden a rich scenery of meadows and vineyards de- 
scends to the Leman Lake, and the prospect far beyond the 
Lake is crowned by the stupendous mountains of Savoy. ^ My 
books and my acquaintance had been first united in London ; 
but this happy position of my library in town and country was 
finally reserved for Lausanne. Possessed of every comfort in 
this triple alliance, I could not be tempted to change my 
habitation with the changes of the seasons.^ 

i[" The chosen part of my library is now arrived, and arranged in a room 
full as good as that in Bentinck Street, with this difference indeed, that instead 
of looking on a stone court twelve feet square, I command, from three windows 
of plate glass, an unbounded prospect of many a league of vineyard, of fields, 
of wood, of lake, and of mountains" (Corres., ii., ii8). 

Of the sight of his books — one of the most delightful sights to a scholar — he 
intentionally deprived himself. They were hidden away in ' ' twenty-seven book- 
cases or closets, each with stout wooden doors and strong keys. He could shut 
the doors, and then appear to be sitting in a room without a single book " (Read's 
Hist. Studies, ii. , 493). Johnson's garret-library, with its three-legged elbow 
chair, would have looked more cheerful.] 

2 [See Corres., ii. , 142, for an interesting passage where he says that Dey- 
verdun has taught him to ' ' dwell with pleasure on the shape and colour of the 
leaves, the various hues of the blossoms, and successive progress of vegetation ". 
Brought up as he had mainly been in the country, it is strange that he required 
to be taught this lesson when he was past fifty.] 

■^ [On July 21, 1787, he wrote that in four years he had lain but a single night 
out of his own bed" {ib., ii. , 156). 

Mr. Samuel Davey, late of 47, Great Russell Street, kindly allowed me to take 
a copy of the original of Gibbon's bill with his Lausanne tailor for 1784 and 
part of 1785. The following are some of the items. The charges are I think 
in florins and sols. A florin was equal to one French livre and a half according 
to the statement in D'Haussonville's Le Salon de Madame Necker, ii. , 232, that 
Necker paid for Coppet in 1784 " la somme de 500,000 livres argent de France, 
soit 333,333 florins 6 sols 4 deniers argent de Berne". 

"POUR Mr. GUIBONS. 

Monsieur Guibons doit a Jean Wisard. F.S. 

Pour Fa9on et fournitures d'une Cullotte de velour cramoisi . 2. 10 

Une paire de jartieres rouges i. 

\ Ecarlette pour Col et parements et Col de la redingotte 

grise 3. 

Fourni i dzne [douzaine] \ grands boutons argents . . 3. 

Pour avoir redouble les pans d'une veste, fourni la doublure 

en soy blanche . . . . . . . . . i.io 

Pour Fapon d'un habit de royale ...... 4. 

Fournitures 2. 

5 SM^ [aunes] royale superfine a 8;,^ losls. . . . . 42. lo 

I au^ futaine fine a 25 bald [?] ...... 3. 15 

I dzne \ boutons dor^s a 35 bald [?] 5. 5 

Pour fa9on et fournitures d'une Culotte tricot^e en soy noire . 2.10 

Pour Fafon et fournitures de deux vestes de bazaine ray^ . 4.0."] 



220 EDWAED GIBBON [1785-87 

My friends had been kindly apprehensive that I should not 
be able to exist in a Swiss town at the foot of the Alps, after 
having so long conversed with the first men of the first cities 
of the world. 1 Such lofty connections may attract the curious 
and gratify the vain ; but I am too modest, or too proud to 
rate miy own value by that of my associates ; and whatsoever 
may be the fame of learning or genius, experience has shown 
me that the cheaper qualifications of politeness and good sense 
are of more useful currency in the commerce of life. By many, 
conversation is esteemed as a theatre or a school : but after 
the morning has been occupied by the labours of the library, 
I wish to unbend rather than to exercise my mind ^ ; and in 
the interval between tea and supper I am far from disdaining 
the innocent amusement of a game at cards. ^ Lausanne is 
peopled by a numerous gentry, whose companionable idleness 
is seldom disturbed by the pursuits of avarice or ambition * : 

1 [Gibbon wrote to Lady Sheffield on October 22, 1784 : " Whenever I used 
to hint my design of retiring, that illustrious Baron [Sheffield], after a proper 
effusion of damned fools, condescended to observe that such an obscure nook in 
Switzerland might please me in the ignorance of youth, but that after tasting for 
so many years the various society of Paris and London, I should soon be tired 
with the dull and uniform round of a provincial town" (Corres., ii., 116).] 

2[" Johnson had all his life habituated himself to consider conversation as a 
trial of intellectual vigour and skill" (BosweWs Johnson, iv., iii). Nevertheless 
he said that "that is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, 
no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments " {id., ii., 359). 

" Those persons," writes Burke, " who creep into the hearts of most people, 
who are chosen as the companions of their softer hours, and their reliefs from 
care and anxiety, are never persons of shining qualities, nor strong virtues" 
(T/ie Subli7ne and Beautiful, ed. 1759, p. 206).] 

3 ["Whist at shillings, or half-crowns, is the game I generally play, and I 
play three rubbers with pleasure" {Misc. Works, ii., 342). Writing in 1763 on 
" un Dimanche de Communion " he says : " Point d'affaires, point d'assemblee ; 
on s'interdit jusqu'au w/z/j-^, si n^cessaire a I'existence d'un Lausannois" {ib., 

i., 171)- 

General Read was shown by M. de S^very ' ' Gibbon's counters at whist — 
eight pieces of silver of Ludwig [? Ludovic] XV., 1731 " {Hist. Studies, ii., 483). 
Mr. Samuel Davey showed me a ten of diamonds, on the back of which 
— on a ground of plain white — was written : — 

' ' Bon pour Cent Livres 
k Blondel 

E. Gibbon 

Ce II Mai, 1786.' 

Blondel was Gibbon's valet. See Corres,, ii., 124, 131.] 

''[Gibbon, in The Decline, i., 222, describes the Pays de Vaud as " a small 
district on the banks of the Leman Lake, much more distinguished for polite- 
ness than for industry ".] 



1785-87] MEMOmS OF MY LIFE 221 

the women, though confined to a domestic education, are en- 
dowed for the most part with more taste and knowledge than 
their husbands and brothers ^ ; but the decent freedom of both 
sexes is equally remote from the extremes of simplicity and 
refinement, 2 I shall add as a misfortune rather than a merit, 
that the situation and beauty of the Pays de Vaud, the long 
habits of the English,^ the medical reputation of Dr. Tissot,"* 
and the fashion of viewing the mountains and Glacieis, have 
opened us on all sides to the incursions of foreigners.^ The 
visits of Mr. and Madame Necker, of Prince Henry of Prussia, 
and of Mr. Fox, may form some pleasing exceptions ; but, in 
general, Lausanne has appeared most agreeable in my eyes, 
when we have been abandoned to our own society. I had 
frequently seen Mr, Necker, in the summer of 1784, at a 
country house near Lausanne, where he composed his 
Treatise on the Administration of the Finances,*^ I have 
since, in October 1790, visited him in his present residence, 

i["Il m'a toujours paru qu'^ Lausanne, aussi bien qu'en France, las 
femmes sont tr^s sup^rieures aux hommes" {Corres., ii. , 46).] 

2 [For the mollifying of the prejudice which, when Gibbon first visited Lau- 
sanne, " drew a line of separation between the noble and the plebeian families " 
see Auto., p. 237. " Of the Swiss," wrote Miss Holroyd, "there seems to be 
but one opinion, they certainly do not possess ' les Graces'" {Girlhood, etc., 

p. 79)-] 

■*[" Moi qui aimerais Lausanne cent fois da vantage, si j'y pouvais etre le seul 
de ma nation," he wrote in 1783" [Corres., ii., 38). What he means by "the 
long habits of the English," if it can be made out, is ill-expressed. In June 
1784 there were "three-score English at Lausanne". In October he wrote: 
' ' A colony of English have taken up the habit of spending their winters at 
Nice, and their summers in the Pays de Vaud" {ib., ii. , iii, 116).] 

* [Voltaire mentions him in his Epitre a Horace [Qiuvres, xi., 268) ; — 
" Ainsi, lorsqu'un pauvre homme, au fond de sa chaumifere. 
En d^pit de Tissot, finissait sa carriiire." 

In a note he describes him as " c^lebre m^decin de Lausanne". 

In an attic in his country-house was found in a heap of waste paper a long 
letter from Napoleon Bonaparte about the health of his uncle, dated " Ajaccio, 
April I, 1787," endorsed by Tissot : " Lettre non r^pondue, peu int^ressante " 
(Read's //zrf. Studies, ii., 198).] 

^\_Ante, p. 98. In June 1784 there "were forty French at Lausanne". 
The following October he was walking on his terrace with ' ' a natural son of 
Lewis XV., the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick, Prince Henry of Prussia, and 
a dozen Counts, Barons, and extraordinary persons, among whom was a natural 
son of the Empress of Russia" (ib., ii. , iii, 115).] 

^[^De I' Administration des Finances de la France. 2 torn. 4°. Paris, 1785. 
A translation by T, Mortimer in 3 vols. 8vo was published in London the same 
year (Brit, Mus, Cat.).'] 



222 EDWAED GIBBON [1785-87 

the castle and barony of Copet, near Geneva.^ Of the 
merits and measures of that statesman various opinions may 
be entertained ; but all impartial men must agree in their 
esteem of his integrity and patriotism. 

In August 1784, Prince Henry of Prussia, in his way to 
Paris, passed three days at Lausanne. His military conduct 
has been praised by professional men ; his character has been 
vilified by the wit and malice of a demon ; but I was flattered 
by his affability, and entertained by his conversation. ^ 

In his tour of Switzerland (September 1788) Mr. Fox gave 
me two days of free and private society. He seemed to feel, 
and even to envy, the happiness of my situation while I ad- 
mired the powers of a superior man, as they are blended in 
his attractive character with the softness and simplicity of a 
child. Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly 
exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood.^ 

My transmigration from London to Lausanne could not be 
effected without interrupting the course of my historical 
labours. The hurry of my departure, the joy of my arrival, 
the delay of my tools, suspended their progress ; and a full 
twelvemonth was lost before I could resume the thread of 
regular and daily industry. A number of books most requisite 
and least common had been previously selected * ; the aca- 

1 [Necker and his wife had met Gibbon at Geneva. She wrote to him of this 
meeting : " Je r^unissais dans un mSme lieu . . . une des douces et pures 
affections de ma jeunesse avec celle qui fait mon sort sur la terre et le rend si 
digne d'envie. Cette singularity, jointe aux agrdments d'une conversation sans 
modele, composait pour moi une sorte d'enchantement ; et la connexion du 
pass6 et du present rendait mes jours semblables k un songe sorti par la porte 
d'ivoire pour consoler les mortels. Ne voudrez-vous pas nous le faire continuer 
encore ? " (Le Salon de Madame Necker, ii. , 83. ) 

The castle is only a few miles from Grassy, the scene of their early love- 
making. 

D'Haussonville, describing the castle gate, says: "La solide armature de 
fer inspirait a mon enfance une terreur respectueuse " {Le Saloti de Madame 
Necker, i. , 3). One of the flanking towers was built in the thirteenth century. 
More than a hundred years before Gibbon's visit Bayle had spent eighteen 
months there as tutor to the owner's children [ib. , ii. , 222-33). From the house 
could be seen the town of Geneva, which Gibbon described in 1783 as " le 
triste s^Jour du travail et de la discorde" (Corres., ii., 39).] 

2 [See Appendix 49.] ^ [See Appendix, 50.] 

*[He had with him, he wrote, " more than two thousand volumes, the choice 
of a chosen library" (Corres., ii., 124).] 



1785-87] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 223 

demical library of Lausanne, which I could use as my own, 
contained at least the fathers and councils ^ ; and I have de- 
rived some occasional succour from the public collections of 
Berne ^ and Geneva. The fourth volume was soon terminated 
by an abstract of the controversies of the Incarnation, which 
the learned Dr. Prideaux was apprehensive of exposing to pro- 
fane eyes. It had been the original design of the learned 
Dean Prideaux ^ to write the history of the ruin of the Eastern 
Church. In this work it would have been necessary, not only 
to unravel all those controversies which the Christians made 
about the hypostatical union, but also to unfold all the niceties 
and subtle notions which each sect entertained concerning it.^ 
The pious historian was apprehensive of exposing that in- 
comprehensible mystery to the cavils and objections of un- 
believers : and he durst not, " seeing the nature of this book, 
venture it abroad in so wanton and lewd an age ".^ 

In the fifth and sixth volumes the revolutions of the empire 

1 [To Dey verdun he wrote : ' ' Malheureusement votre bibliothfeque publique, 
en y ajoutant meme celle de M. de Bochat, est assez piteuse" [ib., ii., 48). 
Gibbon bequeathed to it 97 learned volumes (Read's Historic Studies, i. , 144).] 

2 [Those from Berne he got by irregular means through a friend at Berne, 
who wrote : " I lend myself quite willingly to the petty deceit which the managing 
committee of the Library so well merits" (ib., ii. , 463).] 

2 [In the text Gibbon had written " the learned Dr. Prideaux," and in a note 
" the learned Dean Prideaux " {Auto. , p. 332). Lord Sheffield by incorporating 
the note in the text produced the repetition.] 

* [" I have already observed that the disputes of the Trinity were succeeded 
by those of the Incarnation ; alike scandalous to the Church, alike pernicious to 
the State, still more minute in their origin, still more durable in their effects " 
( TAe Decline, v. , 96). After speaking of the Catholic doctrine of ' ' the sub- 
stantial, indissoluble and everlasting union of a perfect God with a perfect man," 
Gibbon goes on to describe the ' ' secret and incurable discord which was cherished 
between those who were most apprehensive of confounding, and those who were 
most fearful of separating, the divinity and the humanity of Christ. . . . To 
escape from each other they wandered through many a dark and devious thicket, 
till they were astonished by the horrid phantoms of Cerinthus and Apollinaris, 
who guarded the opposite issues of the theological labyrinth. As soon as they 
beheld the twilight of sense and heresy they started, measured back their steps, 
and were again involved in the gloom of impenetrable orthodoxy" {j.b., v., 
105)-] 

° See preface to the Z,?/e of Mahomet, p. xxi.- — Gibbon. [Second ed. 1697, 
Preface, p. 17. The Preface is dated March 15, 169!^. 

' ' Two professed lives of iVIahomet have been composed by Dr. Prideaux and 
the Count de Boulainvilliers ; but the adverse wish of finding an impostor or an 
hero has too often corrupted the learning of the Doctor and the ingenuity of the 
Count" (The Decline, v., 352).] 



224 EDWAED GIBBON [1785-87 

and the world are most rapid, various, and instructive ; and 
the Greek or Roman historians are checked by the hostile 
narratives of the barbarians of the East and the West.^ 

It was not till after many designs, and many trials, that I 
preferred, as I still prefer, the method of grouping my picture 
by nations ; and the seeming neglect of chronological order is 
surely compensated by the superior merits of interest and 
perspicuity. The style of the first volume is, in my opinion, 
somewhat crude and elaborate ; in the second and third it is 
I'ipened into ease, correctness, and numbers ^ ; but in the 
three last I may have been seduced by the facility of my pen, 
and the constant habit of speaking one language and writing 
another may have infused some mixture of Gallic idioms. 
Happily for my eyes, I have always closed my studies with 
the day, and commonly with the morning ; and a long, but 
temperate, labour has been accomplished, without fatiguing 
either the mind or body ; but when I computed the remainder 
of my time and my task, it was apparent that, according to 
the season of publication, the delay of a month would be 
productive of that of a year. I was now straining for the 
goal, and in the last winter many evenings were borrowed 
from the social pleasures of Lausanne.^ I could now wish 
that a pause, an interval, had been allowed for a serious 
revisal. 

I have presumed to mark the moment of conception ^ : I 

I I have followed the judicious precept of the Abbe de Mably (Maniere 
d'^crire I'Histoire, p. no), who advises the historian not to dwell too minutely 
on the decay of the eastern empire ; but to consider the barbarian conquerors 
as a more worthy subject of his narrative. " Fas est et ab hoste doceri" (Ovid, 
Meta., iv. , 428). — GiBBON. [For Mably see ante, p. 199. ] 

"^{^Ante, p. 189.] 

'^\_Ante, p. 90. On Jan. 20, 1787, he wrote to Lord Sheffield: "The 
mornings in winter, and in a country of early dinners, are very concise ; to 
them, my usual period of study, I now frequently add the evenings, renounce 
cards and society, refuse the most agreeable evenings, or perhaps make my 
appearance at a late supper. By this extraordinary industry, which I never 
practised before, and to which I hope never to be again reduced, I see the last 
part of my History growing apace under my hands" [Corres., ii. , 151). It 
must be remembered that he worked all the year round. In four years he ' ' had 
lain but a single night out of his own bed " {ante, p. 219, «.).] 

^{Ante, p. 167.] 



1787] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 225 

shall now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It 
was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, 
between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last 
lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. 
After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, 
or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the 
country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, 
the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected 
from the waters, and all nature was silent.^ I will not dis- 
semble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, 
and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride 
was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over 
my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave 
of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might 
be the future date of my History, the life of the historian 
must be short and precarious. ^ I will add two facts, which 
have seldom occurred in the composition of six, or at least of 
five quartos.^ 1. My first rough manuscript, without any 
intermediate copy, has been sent to the press.* 2. Not a 
sheet has been seen by any human eyes, excepting those of 
the author and the printer ^ ; the faults and the merits are 
exclusively my own.^ 

I cannot help recollecting a much more extraordinary fact, 

1 [See Appendix 51.] 

2 [On Feb. 13, 1837, Carlyle thus described to Emerson the completion of 
his French Revolution : ' ' You, I hope, can have little conception of the feeling 
with which I wrote the last word of it, one night in early January, when the 
clock was striking ten, and our frugal Scotch supper coming in ! I did not 
cry ; nor I did not pray : but could have done both" [Carlyle and Emerso7i 
Corres., ed. 1883, i., 114).] 

"^•^Ante, pp. 190, 201.] 

^ [There was only one manuscript of Johnson's Lives of the Poets (Boswell's 
Johnson, iv. , 36).] 

5 [His friends Batt and Deyverdun had read the first volume, or part of it, 
in manuscript {Corres., i. , 265).] 

^ Extract from Mr. Gibbon's Common-place Book. 
The IVth Volume of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 

begun March ist, 1782 — ended June 1784. 
The Vth Volume, begun July 1784— ended May ist, 1786. 
The Vlth Volume, begun May i8th, 1786 — ended June 27th, 1787. 

These three volumes were sent to press August 15th, 1787, and the whole 
impression was concluded April following. — Sheffield. 

15 



226 EDWARD GIBBON [i787 

which is affirmed of himself by Retif de la Bretonne, a volumi- 
nous and original writer of French novels. He laboured, and 
may still labour, in the humble office of corrector to a printing- 
house ; but this office enabled him to transport an entire 
volume from his mind to the press ; and his work was given 
to the public without ever having been written with a pen.^ 

After a quiet residence of four years, during which I had 
never moved ten miles from Lausanne, it was not without 
some reluctance and terror, that I undertook, in a journey of 
two hundred leagues, to cross the mountains and the sea. 
Yet this formidable adventure was achieved without danger 
or fatigue ; and at the end of a fortnight I found myself in 
Lord Sheffield's house and library, safe, happy, and at home.^ 
The character of my friend (Mr. Holroyd) had recommended 
him to a seat in parliament for Coventry, the command of a 
regiment of light dragoons, and an Irish peerage. The sense 
and spirit of his political writings have decided the public 
opinion on the great questions of our commercial interest with 
America and Ireland. 

The sale of his Observations oti the American States was diffu- 
sive, their effect beneficial ; the Navigation Act, the palladium 
of Britain, was defended, and perhaps saved,, by his pen ; and 
he proves, by the weight of fact and argument, that the 
mother- country may survive and flourish after the loss of 
America. 3 My friend has never cultivated the arts of com- 

1 [I find no mention of this in the Biog. Univ. (under R^tif ). He is 
described as " le plus f^cond &rivain de son temps". After his second or 
third book " il quitta I'imprimerie pour faire des livres". He used to roam 
the streets at night. " Comme il portait d'habitude une dcritoire dans sa poche, 
il s'en allait 6crire ce qu'il avait vu soit a la lueur des r^verberes, soit sur les 
parapets de I'ile Saint-Louis." At one time he was worth 6o,ooo francs ; but 
being ruined by the Revolution he became a corrector of the press. He died 
in i8o6. He was a worthless scoundrel and a most licentious writer.] 

2 [In writing to Lord Sheffield just before leaving Lausanne he had called 
that town his home. " So happy do I feel myself at home [the italics are 
his], that nothing but the strongest calls of friendship and interest could 
drag me from hence" \{Corres., ii. , 156). He reached London on Aug. 7, 
1787, after the post had left, as he informed Lord Sheffield in a letter dated 
Aug. 8 (ib., p. 157). To his step-mother he wrote on Aug. 9 : " I reached 
the Adelphi Hotel, Wednesday the 8th instant, after the departure of the post " 
{ib., p. 158). Apparently he did not wish her to know that he had let a whole 
day go by without writing to her. ] 

^[See Appendix 52.] 



1787] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 227 

position 1 ; but his materials are copious and correct, and he 
leaves on his paper the clear impression of an active and 
vigorous mind. His Observations on the Trade, Mmnifactures, 
and present State of Ireland, were intended to guide the industry, 
to correct the prejudices, and to assuage the passions of a 
country which seemed to forget that she could be free and 
prosperous only by a friendly connection with Great Britain. 
The concluding observations are written with so much ease 
and spirit, that they may be read by those who are the least 
interested in the subject.^ 

He fell^ (in 1784) with the unpopular coalition; but his 
merit has been acknowledged at the last general election, 
1790, by the honourable invitation and free choice of the city 
of Bristol.^ During the whole time of my residence in Eng- 
land I was entertained at Sheffield Place and in Downing 
Street ^ by his hospitable kindness ; and the most pleasant 
period was that which I passed in the domestic society of the 
family. In the larger circle of the metropolis I observed the 
country and the inhabitants with the knowledge, and with- 
out the prejudices, of an Englishman ; but I rejoiced in the 
apparent increase of wealth and prosperity, which might be 
fairly divided between the spirit of the nation and the wisdom 
of the minister.'' All party-resentment was now lost in oblivion : 

1 [" The subordinate beauties of style and arrangement yon disclaim," Gibbon 
wrote to him in 1785 {Corres., ii. , 128). In printing this letter Lord Sheffield 
omitted the words I have italicised [Misc. Works, ii., 378).] 

2 [See Appendix 53.] 

3 It is not obvious from whence he fell ; he never held nor desired any 
office of emolument whatever, unless his military commissions, and the com- 
mand of a regiment of light dragoons, which he raised himself, and which 
was disbanded on the peace in 1783, should be deemed such. — Sheffield. 

[The fall was the loss of his seat for Coventry. Of those who supported 
the Coalition 159 fell with him — Fox's Martyrs, as they were called.] 

•^ [See Appendix 54. ] 

3 [The preface to the latter half of Tke Decline is dated " Downing Street, 
May I, 1788 ". On July 2, 1793, Miss Holroyd wrote that Lord Sheffield " had 
agreed to let Government have his house in Downing Street ' ' ( Gii-lkood, etc. , 
p. 224).] 

6 [Gibbon wrote about his investments on Dec. 31, 1791 : "The three per 
cents, are so high, and the country is in such a damned state of prosperity 
under that fellow Pitt, that it goes against me to purchase at such low interest " 
(Corres., ii. , 282). They stood at 90 (Ann. Reg., 1791, ii. , no). By March, 
1792, they had risen to 97. By the end of the year they had fallen to 74 (lb., 
1792, ii., 152).] 



228 EDWARD GIBBON [i787 

since I was no man's rival, no man was my enemy. I felt the 
dignity of independence, and as I asked no more, I was 
satisfied with the general civilities of the world. The house 
in London which I frequented with most pleasure and assi- 
duity was that of Lord North.^ After the loss of power and 
of sight,^ he was still happy in himself and his friends ; and 
my public tribute of gratitude and esteem could no longer be 
suspected of any interested motive.^ Before my departure 
from England, I was present at the august spectacle of Mr. 
Hastings's trial in Westminster Hall. It is not my province 
to absolve or condemn the Governor of India ; but Mr. 
Sheridan's eloquence demanded my applause ; nor could I 
hear without emotion the personal compliment which he paid 
me in the presence of the British nation."^ 

From this display of genius, which blazed four successive 
days, I shall stoop to a very mechanical circumstance. As I 
was waiting in the managers' box, I had the curiosity to 
inquire of the short-hand writer, how many words a ready 
and rapid orator might pronounce in an hour } From 7,000 
to 7,500 was his answer. The medium of 7,200 will afford 120 
words in a minute, and two words in each second. But this 
computation will only apply to the English language. 

1 [Lord North in 1790 succeeded his father as Earl of Guilford. He died 
two years later, a little after Reynolds. Gibbon wrote : " Lord Guilford and 
Sir Joshua Reynolds ! two of the men, and two of the houses in London, on 
whom I thejmost relied for the comforts of society " (Corres., ii., 311).] 

2 [Lord Sheffield wrote to W. Eden on May 10, 1787 : " Lord North has no 
hopes ; he says he has no expectations but of darkness. He held up his hand, 
and said he could not see it. He was, however, pleasant, and with his usual 
ability took up the questions of the day " (Auckland Corres. , i., 418).] 

3[" Were I ambitious of any other Patron than the Public I would inscribe 
this work to a Statesman who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfor- 
tunate administration, had many political opponents, almost without a personal 
enemy : who has retained in his fall from power many faithful and disinterested 
friends, and who, under the pressure of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigour 
of his mind, and the felicity of his incomparable temper " ( The Decline, Preface 
to vol. iv. of quarto ed. Ed. Bury, Preface, p. 12. See ante, pp. 192, 214). 

On May 20, 1783, Gibbon had written of him : " Avec beaucoup d' esprit, 
et des qualit^s tres respectables, notre homme a la d-marche lente et le cceur 
froid " {Corres., ii. , 37). On Dec. 20 he wrote : " Lord North suffered me to 
depart without even a civil answer to my letter. Were I capable of hating a 
man whom it is not easy to hate, I should find myself most amply revenged 
by the insignificance of the creature in this mighty revolution of India," his 
own peculiar department (ib. , p. 87).] 

*[See Appendix 55.] 



1788] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 229 

As the publication of my three last volumes was the principal 
object, so it was the first care of my English journey. The 
previous arrangements with the bookseller and the printer 
were settled in my passage through London,^ and the proofs, 
which I returned more correct, were transmitted every post 
from the press to Sheffield Place. The length of the opera- 
tion, and the leisure of the country, allowed some time to 
review my manuscript. Several rare and useful books, the 
Assises de Jerusalem, ^ Ramusius de Bello C. Pano,^ the Greek 
Acts of the Synod of Florence,* the Statuta Urbis Romae,^ 
etc. were procured, and I introduced in their proper places the 
supplements which they afforded. The impression of the 
fourth volume had consumed three months. Our common 
interest required that we should move with a quicker pace ; 
and Mr. Strahan fulfilled his engagement, which few printers 
could sustain, of delivering every week three thousand copies 
of nine sheets. The day of publication was, however, delayed 
that it might coincide with the fifty-first anniversary of my 
own birthday ; the double festival was celebrated by a cheer- 
ful literary dinner at Mr. Cadell's house ^ ; and I seemed to 

1 [Lord Sheffield wrote on August 22, 1787 : " The three quartos will appear 
in the spring. The Gibbon wrote a note to Cadell, saying he hoped he would 
think the three younger of equal merit with the elder brothers, and equally valu- 
able, and thus the bargain was immediately concluded " {Auckland Corres., i. , 
435)-] 

2 [' ' No sooner had Godfrey of Bouillon accepted the office of supreme 
magistrate than he solicited the public and private advice of the Latin pilgrims, 
who were the best skilled in the statutes and customs of Europe. From these 
materials, with the counsel and approbation of the patriarch and barons, of the 
clergy and laity, Godfrey composed the Assise of Jerusalem, a precious 
monument of feudal jurisprudence " {The Declbie, vi. , 317).] 

•'[In Lord Sheffield's editions and in the Auto, this is misprinted " de Bello 
C. Paro ". The book is De bello Constantinopolitano et Imperatoribus Comnenis 
-per Gallos et Venetos restitutis histoj-ia P. Ra7n?iusii. Editio altera. Venetiis, 
1634, fol. Brit. Mus. Cat. sub Rannusio, Paolo. See T/ie Decline, vi. , 412, n.\ 

* [Gibbon, after describing the opening of the Council of the Greeks and 
Latins at Ferrara in 1438, continues: "It was only by the alternative of 
hunger or dispute that the Greeks could be persuaded to open the first con- 
ference ; and they yielded with extreme reluctance to attend from Ferrara to 
Florence the rear of a flying synod " ( The Decline, vii. , 108).] 

^\Ib., vii., 293.] 

8 [Gibbon was born on April 27, O. S. ; but the birthday was kept accord- 
ing to the new style, on May 8, 1788. He wrote to Dr. Robertson on March 
26 : " The important day is now fixed to the eighth of May, and it was chosen 



230 EDWAED GIBBON [i788 

blush Avhile they read an elegant compliment from Mr. Hayley, 
whose poetical talents had more than once been employed in 
the praise of his friend. Before Mr. Hayley inscribed with 
my name his epistles on history,^ I was not acquainted with 
that amiable man and elegant poet. He afterwards thanked 
me in verse for my second and third volumes ; and in the 
summer of 1781, the Roman Eagle (a proud title) accepted 
the invitation of the English Sparrow, who chirped in the 
groves of Eartham, near Chichester. ^ As most of the former 
purchasers Avere naturally desirous of completing their sets, 
the sale of the quarto edition was quick and easy ; and an 
octavo size ^ was printed, to satisfy at a cheaper rate the public 
demand. The conclusion of my work was generally read, and 
variously judged. The style has been exposed to much 
academical criticism ; a religious clamour was revived, and the 
reproach of indecency has been loudly echoed by the rigid 
censors of morals. I never could understand the clamour 
that has been raised against the indecency of my three last 
volumes,^ 1. An equal degree of freedom in the former part, 
especially in the first volume, had passed without reproach. 

by Cadell, as it coincides with the end of the fifty-first year of the author's age. 
That honest and liberal bookseller has invited me to celebrate the double festival 
by a dinner at his house" (Stewart's Boberfsoii, p. 366).] 

i[See Appendix 56.] 

2 [Horace Walpole wrote on August 16, 1781 [Letters, viii. , 70) : "I have 
received from Brighthelmstone a long card in verse, from Mr. Hayley to Mr. 
Gibbon, inviting Livy to dine with Virgil". 

Cowper, who visited Hayley in August, 1792, thus describes Eartham : " Here 
we are in the most elegant mansion that I have ever inhabited, and surrounded 
by the most delightful pleasure grounds that I have ever seen" (Southey's 
Coauper, vii. , 139). 

"All who knew Haj^ey," writes Southey, " concur in describing his manners 
as in the highest degree winning, and his conversation as delightful " (//'., iii. , 
66).] 

2 [In twelve vols. , 1791. One in fourteen vols. Svo had been ptiblished at 
Basil in 1789 [Brit. Miis. Cat.).'\ 

■*[In The Gentleman's Magazine, 1788, p. 475, is a "Selection from Mr. 
Gibbon's learned and entertaining Notes " to the last three volumes. In the next 
number (p. 599) a correspondent reproaches the editor for ' ' sullying his pages 
by those filthy extracts from a silly book called T/ie History of the Declension 
{sic^ and Fall of the Roman Eynpire" . Some months later (p. 1157) another 
correspondent complains of ' ' your pure pages being for the first time defiled 
with the filthy rakings of a celebrated historian". This was not the first defile- 
ment of the magazine. Its early numbers contained verses as grossly indecent 
as they were dull. ] 



1788] MEMOIKS OF MY LIFE 231 

2, I am justified in painting the manners of the times ; the 
vices of Theodora ^ form an essential feature in the reign and 
character of Justinian ; and the most naked tale in my history 
is told by the Rev. Mr. Joseph Warton, an instructor of youth ^ 
[Essay on the Genius atid Writings of Pope, pp. 322-324). 3. 
My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left 
in the obscui'ity of a learned language.^ Le Latin dans ses 
mots brave I'honnitete, says the correct Boileau,* in a country 
and idiom more scrupulous than our own. Yet, upon the 
whole, the History of the Decline and Fall seems to have 
struck root, both at home and abroad, and may, perhaps, a 
hundred years hence still continue to be abused.^ I am less 
flattered by Mr. Person's high encomium on the style and 
spirit of my history, than I am satisfied with his honourable 
testimony to my attention, diligence, and accuracy ; those 
humble virtues, which religious zeal had most audaciously 
denied. The sweetness of his praise is tempered by a reason- 
able mixture of acid.^ As the book may not be common 
in England, I shall transcribe my own character from the 
Bibliotheca Historica of Meuselius, a learned and laborious 
German. " Summis sevi nostri historicis Gibbonus sine dubio 
adnumerandus est. Inter Capitolii ruinas stans primum hujus 
operis scribendi consilium cepit. Florentissimos vitse annos 

i[77?(? Decline, iv. , 212.] 
2 [Headmaster of Winchester College. 

"Should the licentiousness of the tale be questioned, I may exclaim with 
poor Sterne, that it is hard if I may not transcribe with caution what a Bishop 
could write without scruple!" {Tke Decline, vi. , 173.)] 

3 [Gibbon, writing of Theodora, says: "Her murmurs, her pleasures, and 
her arts must be veiled in the obscurity of a learned language" (Tke Decline, 
iv. , 213). He is parodied in the Aiiii-Jacobin, No. xxiii. : " For the osculation, 
or kissing of circles and other curves see Huygens, who has veiled this delicate 
and inflammatory subject in the decent obscurity of a learned language". 

" Comme Bayle, il [Gibbon] se ddecte (mais toujours en note) a la citation 
de quelques passages d'une obsc^nitg Erudite et froide, et il les commente avec 
una 6Mgance recherch^e (voir ce qu'il dit sur Theodora) " (Sainte-Beuve, 
Causeries, viii., 459).] 

* [" Le Latin dans les mots brave rhonngtet6 : 
Mais le lecteur Fran9ais veut Stre respect^ : 
Du moindre sens impur la liberty I'outrage, 
Si la pudeur des mots n'en adoucit I'image." 

[L'Art Po^iigue, ii. , 175.)] 
5 [See Appendix 57.] ^[See Appendix 58.] 



232 EDWARD GIBBON [i788 

colligendo et laborando eidem impendit. Enatum inde 
monumentum aere perennius, licet passim appareant sinistre 
dicta, minus perfecta, veritati non satis consentanea. Videmus 
quidem ubique fere studium scrutandi veritatemque scribendi 
maximum : tamen sine Tillemontio ^ duce ubi scilicet hujus 
historia finitur saepius noster titubat atque hallucinatur. Quod 
vel maxime fit ubi de rebus Ecclesiasticis vel de juris prudentia 
Romana (torn, iv.) tradit, et in aliis locis. Attamen naevi hujus 
generis baud impediunt quo minus operis summam et otKovo/xiav 
praeclare dispositam, delectum rerum sapientissimum, argutum 
quoque interdum, dictionemque seu stylum historico aeque ac 
philosopho dignissimum, et vix a quoque alio Anglo, Humio 
ac Robertsono haud exceptis praerepto (prcereptum ?) vehe- 
menter laudemus, atque saeculo nostro de hujusmodi historia 
gratulemur . . . Gibbonus adversarios cum in turn extra 
patriam nactus est, quia propagationem religionis Christianae, 
non, ut vulgo, fieri solet, aut mote Theologorum, sed ut 
Historicum et Philosophum decet, exposuerat." 

The French, Italian, and German translations have been 
executed with various success ; but, instead of patronising, 
I should willingly suppress such imperfect copies, which injure 
the character, while they propagate the name of the author. 
The first volume had been feebly, though faithfully, translated 
into French by M. Le Clerc de Septchenes, a young gentle- 
man of a studious character and liberal fortune.'^ After his 
decease the work was continued by two manufacturers of 
Paris, MM. Desmuniers ^ and Cantwell * : but the former is 

1 [Gibbon records in T/ie Decline, v., 132, under date of A.D. 514: " Here I 
must take leave for ever of that incomparable guide [Tillemont] — whose bigotry- 
is overbalanced by the merits of erudition, diligence, veracity, and scrupulous 
minuteness. He was prevented by death from completing, as he designed, 
the sixth century of the Church and Empire " (see ante, pp. 182, 183, n.).'\ 

2 [See Appendix 59.] 

•* [Count Jean Nicolas D^meunier. In the summer of 1792 he escaped to 
America, returning to France in 1796 {Dictionnaire des Parleme7itaires Frangais, 
1890, p. 332)-] 

* [Andr6 S. M. Cantwel. " Traduttore traditore, disent les Italiens. M. 
Qu6rard, appliquant cet adage k Cantwel, accuse ce traducteur aussi laborieux 
qu' inexact des trahisons suivantes de I'anglais [Here follows a list of transla- 
tions]. Cantwel a travaill6 en collaboration avec Marini6 k la traduction " 
\Nouv. Biog. Gdn., 1854).] 



1788] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 233 

now an active member in the national assembly, and the 
undertaking languishes in the hands of his associate. The 
superior merit of the interpreter, or his language, inclines me 
to prefer the Italian version : but I wish that it were in my power 
to I'ead the German, which is praised by the best judges. 
The Irish pirates are at once my friends and my enemies.^ 
But I cannot be displeased with the too numerous and correct 
impressions which have been published for the use of the 
continent at Basil in Switzerland,^ The conquests of our 
language and literature are not confined to Europe alone, and 
a writer who succeeds in London is speedily read on the banks 
of the Delaware and the Ganges,^ 

In the preface of the fourth volume, while I gloried in the 
name of an Englishman, I announced my approaching return 
to the neighbourhood of the Lake of Lausanne.^ This last 
trial confirmed my assurance that I had wisely chosen for my 
own happiness ; nor did I once, in a year's visit, entertain a 
wish of settling in my native country. Britain is the free and 
fortunate island ; but where is the spot in which I could 
unite the comforts and beauties of my establishment at Lau- 
sanne ? The tumult of London astonished my eyes and ears ; 
the amusements of public places were no longer adequate 
to the trouble ; the clubs and assemblies were filled with new 
faces and young men ; and our best society, our long and 

1 [An^e, p. 195.] 

2 Of their fourteen octavo volumes, the two last include the whole body of 
the notes. The public importunity had forced me to remove them from the 
end of the volume to the bottom of the page ; but I have often repented of my 
compliance. — Gibbon. 

[Hume, on receiving the present of vol. i., wrote to Strahan : "One is 
plagued with his notes, according to the present method of printing the book. 
When a note is announced, you turn to the end of the volume ; and there you 
often find nothing but the reference to an authority. All these authorities ought 
only to be printed at the margin or the bottom of the page " {^Letters to Strahan, 
P- 314)-] 

3[" Boswell's writings," wrote Macaulay, " are read beyond the Mississippi, 
and under the Southern Cross " {Misc. Writings, ed. 1871, p. 387). The 
western boundary of literature, which in less than seventy years was thus ex- 
tended from the Delaware to beyond the Mississippi, would now have to be 
carried to the shores of the Pacific, while the eastern boundary has already 
reached Japan.] 

4 [See Appendix 60.] 



234 EDWARD GIBBON [i788 

late dinners, would soon have been prejudicial to my health. ^ 
Without any share in the political wheel, I must be idle and 
insignificant : yet the most splendid temptations would not 
have enticed me to engage a second time in the servitude of 
Parliament or office. At Tunbridge, some weeks after the 
publication of my History, I reluctantly quitted Lord and 
Lady Sheffield,^ and, with a young Swiss friend,^ whom I had 
introduced to the English world, I pursued the road of Dover 
and Lausanne. My habitation was embellished in my absence, 
and the last division of books, which followed my steps, in- 
creased my chosen library to the number of between six and 
seven thousand volumes.* My seraglio was ample, my choice 
was free, my appetite was keen. After a full repast on Homer 
and Aristophanes, I involved myself in the philosophic maze 
of the writings of Plato, of which the dramatic is, perhaps, 
more interesting than the argumentative part : but I stepped 
aside into every path of inquiry which reading or reflection 
accidentally opened. '^ 



1 [In 1783 he wrote : " La temperance d'un repas Anglais vous permet de 
gofiter de cinq ou six vins difKrens, at vous ordonne de boire une bouteille de 
claret aprfe le dessert " [Corres., ii. , 46).] 

2 [Lord Sheffield wrote on July 29, 1788 : " Alas ! we are just returned from 
attending The Gibbon towards Dover. After passing a year with us at Sheffield 
Place and Downing Street, he is gone to what he calls home. He has taken 
with him all his books, and talks of visiting England occasionally. . . . My 
lady and I accompanied him to Tunbridge Wells, where we passed three days 
with Lord North" [Atickland Co)-res., ii. , 220). Gibbon is often spoken of as 
" The Gibbon " or " Le Gibbon ".] 

•^ M. Wilhelm de S^very. —Sheffield. [He came to England in Nov. 1787, 
and was placed by Gibbon at school to learn English. The youth felt parting 
with his protector; " mais au plus fort de son abattement, lorsque, pour 
dernifere consolation, je lui ai propose de retourner a Lausanne, il ra'a r^pondu 
du ton le plus fier, Plut'it mourir". Gibbon, in writing to his father, spoke of 
him as " notre fils," " notre enfant ". He left him by his will ^^3,000, and his 
furniture, plate, etc., at Lausanne [Misc. Wo)-ks, i. , 427 ; ii. , 409, 415, 423, and 
post, p. 268).] 

* [See Appendix 61.] 

5 [Writing on Oct. 12, 1790, of his endeavour "to find out some occupation 
more invigorating than mere reading can afford," he continued : " But the 
remembrance of a servitude of twenty years frightened me from again engaging 
in a long undertaking which I might probably never finish. It would be better, 
I thought, to select from the historical monuments of all ages and all nations 
such subjects as might be treated separately. When these little works, which 
might be entitled Historical Excursions, amounted to a volume, I would offer 



1789] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 235 

Alas ! the joy of my return, and my studious ardour, were 
soon damped by the melancholy state of my friend Mr. Dey- 
verdun.i His health and spirits had long suffered a gradual 
decline, a succession of apoplectic fits announced his dissolu- 
tion ; and before he expired, those who loved him could not 
wish for the continuance of his life. The voice of reason 
might congratulate his deliverance, but the feelings of nature 
and friendship could be subdued only by time : his amiable 
chaz'acter was still alive in my remembrance ; each room, 
each walk, was imprinted with our common footsteps ; and I 
should blush at my own philosophy, if a long interval of study 
had not preceded and followed the death of my friend. By 
his last will he left to me the option of purchasiiag his house 
and garden, or of possessing them during my life, on the 
payment either of a stipulated price, or of an easy retribution 
to his kinsman and heir. I should probably have been 
tempted by the demon of property, if some legal difficulties 
had not been started against my title ^ ; a contest would have 
been vexatious, doubtful, and invidious ; and the heir most 
gratefully subscribed an agreement, which rendered my life- 
possession more perfect, and his future condition more advan- 

it to the public ; and the present might be repeated, until either the public or 
myself were tired " (Afisc. Works, iii. , 354). 

On Jan. 6, 1793, he wrote that he had long thought of writing " the Lives, 
or rather the Characters, of the most eminent Persons in Arts and Arms, in 
Church and State, who have flourished in Britain from the reign of Henry VIII. 
to the present age" {ib., i., 391). 

Four days after his death John Pinkerton wrote to John Nichols : "In July 
last Mr. Gibbon was pleased to call me in as his coadjutor in a design he 
meditated of publishing all the early English historians in ten or twelve volumes 
folio " (Nichols's Lit. Hist., v., 676).] 

i[He died on July 4, 1789. " I fancied," wrote Gibbon, ''that time and 
reflection had prepared me for the event ; but the habits of three and thirty 
years' friendship are not so easily broken. The first days, and more especially 
the first nights, were indeed painful" [Corres., ii., 194). By his will of 1788 
Gibbon had bequeathed to him the life-interest of ;^4,ooo [Auto., p. 421).] 

2 [" There is a law in this country, as well as in some provinces of France, 
which is styled le droit de retrait, le retrait lignager, by which the relations of 
the deceased are entitled to redeem a house or estate at the price for which it 
has been sold ; and as the sum fixed by poor Deyverdun is much below its 
known value, a crowd of competitors are beginning to start. The best opinions 
(for they are divided) are in my favour, that I am not subject to le droit de 
retrait., since I take, not as a purchaser, but as a legatee " (Carres., ii., 202).] 



236 EDWARD GIBBON [1789-93 

tageous.^ Yet I had often revolved the judicious lines in 
which Pope answers the objections of his long-sighted friend : 

Pity to build without or child [a son] or wife ; 
Why, you'll enjoy it only all your life : 
Well, if the use be mine, does [can] it concern one, 
Whether the name belong to Pope or Vernon ? ^ 

The certainty of my tenure has allowed me to lay out a con- 
siderable sum in improvements and alterations : they have 
been executed with skill and taste ; and few men of letters, 
perhaps, in Europe, are so desirably lodged as myself. But I 
feel, and with the decline of years I shall more painfully feel, 
that I am alone in Paradise.^ Among the circle of my 
acquaintance at Lausanne, I have gradually acquired the solid 
and tender friendship of a respectable family * : the four 
persons of whom it is composed are all endowed with the 
virtues best adapted to their age and situation ; and I am en- 
couraged to love the parents as a brother, and the children as 
a father. Every day we seek and find the opportunities of 
meeting : yet even this valuable connection cannot supply the 
loss of domestic society. 

^ [Corres., ii., 202.] 

2 [Pope, /mii. Hor. Sat., ii. , 2, 163. "How often," Gibbon wrote, "did 
I repeat to myself the philosophical lines of Pope, which seem to determine the 
question !" (Corres., ii. , 195.)] 

*[" July 25, 1789. The prospect before me is a melancholy solitude. . . . 
I have conceived a romantic idea of educating and adopting Charlotte Porten 
[his cousin] ; as we descend into the vale of years our infirmities require some 
domestic female society. Charlotte would be the comfort of my age, and I 
could reward her care and tenderness with a decent fortune ' ' (id. , ii. , 200). 
Her mother would not part with her [id., p. 221). 

" May 15, 1790. Since the loss of poor Deyverdun I am alone ; and even 
in Paradise solitude is painful to a social mind. . . . Some expedient, even the 
most desperate, must be embraced, to secure the domestic society of a male or 
female companion" {ib., p. 215). 

"Aug. 7, 1790. Sometimes, in a solitary mood, I have fancied myself 
married to one or another of those whose society and conversation are the most 
pleasing to me ; but when I have painted in my fancy all the probable conse- 
quences of such an union, I have started from my dream, rejoiced in my escape, 
and ejaculated a thanksgiving that I was still in possession of my natural 
freedom" {ib., p. 220).] 

* The family of de S6very.— Sheffield. [On Nov. 10, 1792, when the father 
of the family was dying. Gibbon wrote that his death ' ' would break for ever 
the most perfect system of domestic happiness, in which I had so large and 
intimate a share" {Corres., ii., 336). 'S>&e.post, p. 269.] 



1789-93] MEMOIKS OF MY LIFE 237 

Within the last two or three years our tranquillity has been 
clouded by the disorders of France : many families of Lausanne 
were alarmed and affected by the terrors of an impending 
bankruptcy ; but the revolution, or rather the dissolution 
of the kingdom, has been heard and felt in the adjacent 
lands. 1 

I beg leave to subscribe my assent to Mr. Burke's creed on 
the revolution of France.^ I admire his eloquence, I approve 
his politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can almost excuse his 
reverence for church establishments.^ I have sometimes 
thought of writing a dialogue of the dead, in which Lucian, 
Erasmus, and Voltaire should mutually acknowledge the 
danger of exposing an old superstition to the contempt of the 
blind and fanatic multitude.* 

A swarm of emigrants of both sexes, who escaped from the 
public ruin, has been attracted by the vicinity, the manners, 
and the language of Lausanne ; and our narrow habitations in 
town and country are now occupied by the first names and 
titles of the departed monarchy. These noble fugitives are 
entitled to our pity ; they may claim our esteem, but they 
cannot, in their present state of mind and fortune, much con- 

1 [See Appendix 62.] 

2 [We are reminded of Burke's brother-candidate at Bristol in 1774, who, at 
the end of one of the orator's speeches, exclaimed earnestly : " I say ditto to 
Mr. Burke — I say ditto to Mr. Burke " (Prior's Biirke, ed. 1872, p. 152).] 

*[See Appendix 63.] 

* [' ' The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were 
all considered by the people as equally true, by the philosopher as equally false, 
and by the magistrate as equally useful. . . . We may be well assured that a 
writer conversant with the world [like Lucian] would never have ventured to 
expose the gods of his country to public ridicule, had they not already been the 
objects of secret contempt among the polished and enlightened orders of 
society" {The Decline, i. , 28, 30). 

' ' The great and incomprehensible secret of the universe eludes the enquiry 
of man. Where reason cannot instruct, custom may be permitted to guide ; 
and every nation seems to consult the dictates of prudence by a faithful attach- 
ment to those rites and opinions which have received the sanction of ages " (ib., 
iii., 192). 

Sainte-Beuve, after quoting the passage in the text, continues : " Tous ces 
retours de Gibbon sont sans doute exclusivement dans un int^ret politique et 
social, et ses paroles trouvent encore moyen de s'y imprdgner d'un secret m^pris 
pour ce qu'il ne sent pas. Ne lui demandez pas plus de chaleur ni de sym- 
pathie pour cet ordre de sentiments ou de v6rit^s ; il a du lettr6 chinois dans sa 
maniere d'appr^cier les religions " {Catiseries, viii., 433).] 



238 EDWAED GIBBON [1789-93 

tribute to our amusement.^ Instead of looking down as calm 
and idle spectators on the theatre of Europe, our domestic 
harmony is somewhat embittered by the infusion of party 
spirit : our ladies and gentlemen assume the character of self- 
taught politicians ; and the sober dictates of wisdom and ex- 
perience are silenced by the clamour of the triumphant 
democratesP' The fanatic missionaries of sedition have scattered 
the seeds of discontent in our cities and villages, which had 
flourished above two hundred and fifty years without fearing 
the approach of war, or feeling the weight of government. 
Many individuals, and some communities, appear to be in- 
fested with the Gallic phrenzy, the wild theories of equal and 
boundless freedom ^ ; but I trust that the body of the people 
will be faithful to their sovereign and to themselves ; and I 
am satisfied that the failure or success of a revolt would equally 
terminate in the ruin of the country. While the aristocracy 
of Berne protects the happiness, it is superfluous to enquire 
whether it be founded in the rights of man * ; the economy of 

1 [Miss Holroyd wrote at Lausanne in 1791 : "There is a very pleasant set 
of French here ; but we live entirely with the Severys and Mr. G.'s set, which 
is certainly not equally pleasant. The French and Swiss do not take to one 
another at all. . . . Mr. Gibbon . dislikes the French very much, which is 
nothing but Swiss prejudice, of which he has imbibed a large quantity " {Girl- 
hood, etc., pp. 63, 73).] 

2 [' ' Dec. 28, 1791. Praised be the Lord ! we are infested with few foreigners, 
either French or English. Even our Democrates are more reasonable or more 
discreet ; it is agreed to waive the subject of politics, and we all seem happy 
and cordial" [Carres., ii. , 279). 

Romilly describes in 178 1 how the factions had " hurt the society of Geneva. 
Politics had engrossed what before was given to literature " (Life of Romilly, ed. 
1840, i., 56).] 

^ [" In a civilised state every faculty of man is expanded and exercised ; and 
the great chain of mutual dependence connects and embraces the several 
members of society. The most numerous portion of it is employed in constant 
and useful labour. The select few, placed by fortune above that necessity, can, 
however, fill up their time by the pursuits of interest or glory, by the improve- 
ment of their estate or of their understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and 
even the follies of social life " [The Decline, i. , 221). " The distinctions of ranks 
and persons is the firmest basis of a mixed and limited government " [ib. , iv. , 470). 

" If you begin to improve the constitution, you may be driven step by step 
from the disfranchisement of Old Sarum to the King in Newgate, the Lords 
voted useless, the Bishops abolished, and a House of Commons without articles 
(sans culottes) " (Cor res., ii. , 347). See also ib., p. 356.] 

*[In 1785 he wrote : " There is nothing pleases me so much in this country 
as to enjoy all the blessings of a good government without ever talking or think- 
ing of our governors" (Corres., ii., 131). This doctrine Gibbon enforces in the 



1789-93] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 239 

the state is liberally supplied without the aid of taxes ; and 
the magistrates must reign with prudence and equity, since 
they are unarmed in the midst of an armed nation. ^ 

The revenue of Berne, excepting some small duties, is de- 
rived from church lands, tithes, feudal rights, and interest of 
money. The republic has nearly .500,0001. sterling in the 
English funds, and the amount of their treasure is unknown 
to the citizens themselves. For myself (may the omen be 
averted) I can only declare, that the first stroke of a rebel 
drum would be the signal of my immediate departure. ^ 

When I contemplate the common lot of mortality, I must 
acknowledge that I have drawn a high prize in the lottery of 
life. The far greater part of the globe is overspread with 
barbarism or slavery : in the civilized world, the most numerous 
class is condemned to ignorance and poverty ^ ; and the double 
fortune of my birth in a free and enlightened country, in an 
honourable * and wealthy family, is the lucky chance of an 
unit against millions.^ The general probability is about three 
to one, that a new-born infant will not live to complete his 
fiftieth year.*^ I have now passed that age, and may fairly 

Decline (i. , 78). " If a man," he writes, " were called to fix the period in the 
history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most 
happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed 
from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of 
the Roman empire was governed by absolute power under the guidance of 
virtue and wisdom." Nevertheless the historian sees "in the public felicity the 
latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform 
government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals 
of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, 
the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated " 
(^^.,p. 56)-] 

1 [See Appendix 64.] 

2 [His departure was caused by the death of Lady Sheffield, ' ' whom I had 
known," he wrote, "and loved above three and twenty years, and whom I 
often styled by the endearing name of sister " [Corres., ii. , 378). She died on 
April 3, 1793 ; the news reached him on April 26. He started on May 9 ; but 
having to avoid the seat of war, he did not reach England till about June i [ib. , 
PP- 377 < 379< 3^4)- Fo'^ '^he dangers that he ran seeposi, p. 248.] 

'^ [See Appendix 65.] 

* [His grandfather had dishonoured himself as a South Sea Director (anie, 
p. 19.] 

^[Anie, p. 26.] 

6 See Buffon, SufpUment a t Histoire Nahirelle [ed. 1777], tom. vii. [iv.], pp. 
158-164. Of a given number of new-born infants one half, by the fault of nature 
or man, is extinguished before the age of puberty and reason. A melancholy 
calculation ! — Gibbon. [See ante, p. 29.] 



240 EDWARD GIBBON [1789-93 

estimate the present value of my existence in the three-fold 
division of mind, body, and estate. 

1. The first and indispensable requisite of happiness is a 
clear conscience, unsullied by the reproach or remembrance of 
an unworthy action. 

Hic murus aheneus esto 



Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa.^ 

I am endowed with a cheerful temper,^ a moderate sensi- 
bility, and a natural disposition to repose rather than to 
activity ^ : some mischievous appetites and habits have per- 
haps been corrected by philosophy or time. The love of study, 
a passion which derives fresh vigour from enjoyment, supplies 
each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of independent 
and rational pleasure ^ ; and I am not sensible of any decay 
of the mental faculties.^ The original soil has been highly 
improved by cultivation ; but it may be questioned, whether 
some flowers of fancy, some grateful errors, have not been 
eradicated with the weeds of prejudice. 2. Since I have 

1 [Horace, Bpis. , i. , i. , 59. 

" Be this thy brazen bulwark of defence, 
Still to preserve thy conscious innocence, 
Nor e'er turn pale with guilt." 

(Francis.) 
For Sir Robert Walpole's misquotation of these lines in the House ("nulli 
pallescere culpse," he said), and the guinea which he lost to Pulteney by wager- 
ing that he was right, see Coxe's Walpole, ed. 1798, i., 644.] 

2 [He boasted of his ' ' propensity to view and to enjoy every object in the 
most favourable light " {Corres. , ii., 88). Perhaps he derived this from his aunt, 
Miss Porten, who had, he wrote, ' ' a most invaluable happiness of temper, 
which showed her the agreeable or comfortable side of every object and every 
situation " {Misc. Works, ii. , 392). 

" His physician. Dr. SchoU," writes General Read, " who died in 1835, al- 
ways spoke of his ' tranquille, bon et doux ' character. His daughter told me 
that she had never heard any unkind word or action attributed to Gibbon" 
(Hist. Studies, ii., 506).] 

3 [Speaking of the love of pleasure and the love of action, he says : " The 
character in which both the one and the other should be united and harmonised 
would seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature " ( The Decline, 

ii-, 35)-] 

4 [This pleasure was interrupted by the French Revolution. On Nov. 25, 
1792, he wrote : " The times will not allow me to read or think " [Corres., ii., 

347)-] 

5 [In the preface to the second half of The Decline (i.. Preface, p. 13) he says : 
" In the ardent pursuit of truth and knowledge I am not conscious of decay. 
To an active mind indolence is more painful than labour."] 



1789-93] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 241 

escaped from the long perils of my childhood, the serious ad- 
vice of a physician has seldom been requisite. ^ " The madness 
of superfluous health " 2 j have never known ; but my tender 
constitution has been fortified by time, and the inestimable 
gift of the sound and peaceful slumbers of infancy may be 
imputed both to the mind and body.^ 3. I have already 
described the merits of my society and situation ; but these 
enjoyments would be tasteless or bitter if their possession 
were not assured by an annual and adequate supply. Accord- 
ing to the scale of Switzerland, I am a rich man ; and I am 
indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and 
my expense is equal to my wishes.* My friend Lord Sheffield 
has kindly relieved me from the cares to which my taste and 
temper are most adverse ^ : shall I add, that since the failure 
of my first wishes, I have never entertained any serious 
thoughts of a matrimonial connection ? ^ 

I am disgusted with the affectation of men of letters, who 
complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow ; 
and that their fame (which sometimes is no insupportable 
weight) affords a poor compensation for envy, censure, and 
persecution.''^ My own experience, at least, has taught me a 

^[Posf, p. 258.] 

2 [Pope, Essay on Man, iii. , 3. See ante, p. 42.] 

3 [In July 1785 he wrote : " Good spirits, good appetite, good sleep are my 
habitual state, and though verging towards fifty I still feel myself a young man " 
[Corres., ii. , 129). In 1790 his health began to fail. " From Feb. 9 to July i 
I was not able," he wrote, " to move from my house or chair." In the follow- 
ing winter he was again confined for several weeks [ii., pp. 221, 233). " The 
seeds of the gout," he said, ' ' were sown in his constitution by the hard drinking " 
of his militia days (Auto., p. 189).] 

*[When his estate at Beriton was selling he wrote : " I shall at last attain, 
what I have always sighed for, a clear and competent income, above my wants 
and equal to my wishes" [Corres., ii. , 192).] 

5 [The management and sale of his estate. ] 

6 [See Appendix 66.] 

■^ M. d'Alembert relates, that as he was walking in the gardens of Sans Souci 
with the King of Prussia, Frederic said to him, " Do you see that old woman, 
a poor weeder, asleep on that sunny bank? she is probably a more happy being 
than either of us". The king and the philosopher may speak for themselves ; 
for my part I do not envy the old woman. — Gibbon. 

[" J'ai toujours m^pris^ la triste philosophic qui veut nous rendre insensibles 
k la gloire" {Cor7-es., i., 292). 

" I have never affected, indeed I have never understood, the stoical apathy, 

16 



242 EDWARD GIBBON [1789-93 

very different lesson : twenty happy years have been animated 
by the labour of my History ^ ; and its success has given me 
a name, a rank, a character, in the world, to which I should 
not otherwise have been entitled. The freedom of my 
writings has indeed provoked an implacable tribe ; but, as I 
was safe from the stings, I was soon accustomed to the 
buzzing of the hornets : my nerves are not tremblingly alive, 
and my literary temper is so happily framed, that I am less 
sensible of pain than of pleasure.^ The rational pride of an 
author may be offended, rather than flattered, by vague 
indiscriminate praise ^ ; but he cannot, he should not, be 
indifferent to the fair testimonies of private and public 
esteem.* Even his moral sympathy may be gratified by the 

the proud contempt of criticism which some authors have publicly professed. 
Fame is the motive, it is the rew^ard of our labours ; nor can I easily comprehend 
how it is possible that we should remain cold and indifferent with regard to the 
attempts which are made to deprive us of the most valuable object of our 
possessions, or at least of our hopes" (Misc. Works, iv. , 517). 

He did not always write in this strain. In the Decline, vi. , 341, he describes 
how Saladin ' ' renounced the temptations of pleasure for the graver follies of 
fame and dominion ". 

" Men," said Johnson, " have a solicitude about fame, and the greater share 
they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it " (Boswell's Johnson, i. , 451). 

Burke described fame as ." a passion which is the instinct of all great souls " 
{Payne's Burke, i. , 148). 

Compare the "laudumque immensa cupido" of Virgil (.^i^^^'c^, vi. , 823), 
and " That last infirmity of noble mind" of Milton [Lyci'das, 1. 71).] 

i[In The Decline, vi., 26, after quoting the Caliph's saying that in a reign 
of fifty years he had enjoyed but fourteen days of pure and genuine happiness. 
Gibbon adds in a note : " If I may speak of myself (the only person of whom I 
can speak with certainty), my happy hours have far exceeded, and far exceed 
the scanty numbers of the Caliph of Spain ; and I shall not scruple to add that 
many of them are due to the pleasing labour of the present composition ".] 

2[" Every one of Racine's tragedies," writes Dr. Warton, " was attacked by 
malignant critics. He used to say that these paltry critics gave him more pain 
than all his applauders had given him pleasure" (Warton's Pope's Works, i., 
229). This was perhaps true of Pope (Johnson's Works, viii. , 303, 315), and 
was certainly true of Tennyson. See ante, p. 126, n. 2.] 

3 [' ' The Marquis of Tuscany loved praise and hated flattery ; a nice touch- 
stone which discriminates vanity from the love of fame " [Alisc. Works, iii. , 406). 
" Dearest madam," said Johnson to Hannah More, when she kept on flattering 
him, " consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow it 
so freely" (Boswell's /o/inson, iv., 341).] 

*["Our uncertainty concerning our own merit, and our anxiety to think 
favourably of it, should together naturally enough make us desirous to know 
the opinion of other people concerning it ; to be more than ordinarily elevated 
when that opinion is favourable " (Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, 
ed. 1801, i., 259).] 



1789-93] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 243 

idea, that now, in the present hour, he is imparting some 
degree of amusement or knowledge to his friends in a distant 
land : that one day his mind will be familiar to the grand- 
children of those who are yet unborn.^ I cannot boast of 
the friendship or favour of princes ; the patronage of English 
literature has long since been devolved on our booksellers,^ 
and the measure of their liberality is the least ambiguous test 
of our common success. Perhaps the golden mediocrity of 
my fortune ^ has contributed to fortify my application. 

The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more ; and 
our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful. This day may 
possibly be my last : but the laws of probability, so true in 
general, so fallacious in particular, still allow about fifteen 
years.* I shall soon enter into the period which, as the most 
agreeable of my long life, was selected by the judgment and 
experience of the sage Fontenelle. His choice is approved 
by the eloquent historian of nature, who fixes our moral 
happiness to the mature season in which our passions are 

iJn the first of ancient or modern romances (Tom Jones), this proud 
sentiment, this feast of fancy, is enjoyed by the genius of Fielding. — "Come, 
bright love of fame, etc., fill my ravished fancy with the hopes of charming ages 
yet to come. Foretel me that some tender maid, w^hose grandmother is yet 
unborn, hereafter, when, under the fictitious name of Sophia, she reads the real 
worth which once existed in my Charlotte, shall from her sympathetic breast 
send forth the heaving sigh. Do thou teach me not only to foresee but to 
enjoy, nay even to feed on future praise. Comfort me by the [a] solemn 
assurance, that, when the little parlour in which I sit at this moment [instant] 
shall be reduced to a worse furnished box, I shall be read with honour by those 
who never knew nor saw me, and whom I shall neither know nor see" (Book 
xiii. , ch. I.) — Gibbon. 

["A just estimate of greatness, and the assurance of immortal fame, improve 
our relish for the pleastires of retirement " ( The Decline, i. , 388). See also ib. , ii., 
19, where Gibbon tells how the sages of Greece and Rome " reflected on the 
desire of fame, which transported them into future ages far beyond the bounds 
of death and of the grave ". 

For his earlier praise of Tom Jones, see ante, p. 4.] 

2 ["A man (said Johnson) goes to a bookseller and gets what he can. We 
have done with patronage" (Boswell's /o/z«jo;^, v., 59). "Andrew Millar [the 
bookseller]," he said, " is the Maecenas of the age" {ib., i., 287, «.).] 

3["Auream quisquis mediocritatem Diligit," etc. (Horace, Odes, ii., 10., 5. 
See ante, p. 188. 

Gibbon maintained that "few works of merit and importance had been 
executed in a garret " (^4 z^^. , p. 292) . Among his contemporaries were Thomson , 
Fielding, Johnson, Smollett, and Goldsmith, all poor men, and most of them 
not unacquainted with a garret.] 

*[See/orf, p. 265, and Appendix 67.] 



244 EDWARD GIBBON [1789-93 

supposed to be calmed,^ our duties fulfilled, oui- ambition 
satisfied, our fame and fortune established on a solid basis. 
In private conversation, that great and amiable man added 
the weight of his own experience ; and this autumnal felicity 
might be exemplified in the lives of Voltaire, Hume, and 
many other men of lettei-s.^ I am far more inclined to embrace 
than to dispute this comfortable doctrine. I will not suppose 
any premature decay of the mind or body ; but I must re- 
luctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time, 
and the failure of hope,^ will always tinge with a browner 
shade the evening of life. 

The proportion of a part to the whole is the only standard 
by which we can measure the length of our existence. At 
the age of twenty, one year is a tenth perhaps of the time 
which has elapsed within our consciousness and memory : at 
the age of fifty it is no more than the fortieth, and this 
relative value continues to decrease till the last sands are 
shaken by the hand of death. This reasoning may seem 
metaphysical ; but on a trial it will be found satisfactory and 
just. The warm desires, the long expectations of youth, are 
founded on the ignorance of themselves and of the world : 
they are gradually damped by time and experience, by dis- 
appointment or possession ; and after the middle season the 
crowd must be content to remain at the foot of the mountain ; 
while the few who have climbed the summit aspire to descend 
or expect to fall. In old age, the consolation of hope is 
reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new 
life in their children ; the faith of enthusiasts who sing 
Hallelujahs above the clouds,"^ and the vanity of authors who 
presume the immortality of their name and writings.^ 

i[" And calm of mind, all passion spent" (Samson Agonistes, 1. 1758).] 

2 [See Appendix 68.] 

3 [Gibbon describes hope as "the best comfort of our imperfect condition" 
( The Decline, i. , 40). ] 

■* [For the "small nmiiber of the Elect" to whom "this celestial hope is 
confined " see Auto., p. 349.] 

5 [The whole of this last paragraph Lord Sheffield degraded from the text to 
a note. 

This conclusion is dated Lausanne, March 2, 1791 (Auto., p. 349). Much 
however of the Autobiography was written in the years 1792-3 {ib.,- Table 
of Contents).] 



1789-93] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 245 



Lord Sheffield's Continuation of the Memoirs.^ 

Mr. Gibbon's letters in general bear a strong resemblance 
to the style and turn of his conversation ; the characteristics 
of which were vivacity, elegance, and precision, with know- 
ledge astonishingly extensive and correct.^. He never ceased 
to be instructive and entertaining ; and in general there was 
a vein of pleasantry in his conversation which prevented its 
becoming languid, even during a residence of many months 
with a family in the country. 

It has been supposed that he always arranged what he 
intended to say, before he spoke ; his quickness in conversa- 
tion contradicts this notion ^ : but it is very true, that before 
he sat down to write a note or letter, he completely arranged 

1 [The passages which I am printing from this continuation are taken from 
Gibbon's Miscellaneous Wo7-ks (i. , 277-8, 329-31, 404-28). The intervals are 
filled up with correspondence, which can be now much better read in Mr. 
Rowland E. Prothero's Letters of Edward Gibbon.l 

2 [Miss Holroyd wrote six weeks after his death : " Papa has read us several 
parts of Mr. Gibbon's Memoirs, written so exactly in the style of his conversa- 
tion that, while we felt delighted at the beauty of the thoughts and elegance of 
the language, we could not help feeling a severe pang at the idea we should 
never hear his instructive and amusing conversation any more " [Girlhood, etc., 

P- 273)- 

" Mr. Gibbon's conversation, though in the highest degree informing, was 
not externally brilliant. He was by no means fluent of speech ; his articulation 
was not graceful ; his sentences were evidently laboured, as if he was fearful of 
committing himself. It was rather pedantic and stiff than easy ; yet by some 
unaccountable fascination it was always agreeable and impressive " {Ge??f. Mag., 
1794, P- 178). 

Malone, writing of his death, continued : " He had an immense fund of 
anecdote and of erudition of various kinds, both ancient and modern ; and had 
acquired such a facility and elegance of talk that I had always great pleasure in 
listening to him. The manner and voice, though they were peculiar, and I 
believe artificial at first, did not at all offend, for they had become so appro- 
priated as to appear natural " (Hist. MSS. C. 13th Report, App. viii., p. 230). 
At an earlier date Malone recorded : " Mr. Gibbon is very replete with anec- 
dotes, and tells them with great happiness and fluency" (Prior's Malone, p. 
382). Mme. D'Arblay describes his voice as " gentle, but of studied precision 
of accent " {Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii., 224). On the other hand, according to 
Garat, quoted by Sainte-Beuve : " Sa voix, qui n'avait que des accens aigus, ne 
pouvait avoir d' autre moyen d'arriver au coeur que de percer les oreilles " 
{Causeries, viii., 440).] 

3 [Miss Holroyd wrote of him at Lausanne : "When he opens his mouth 
(which you know he generally does some time before he has arranged his 
sentence)," etc. (Girlhood, etc., p. 77).] 



246 EDWAED GIBBON [i79i-93 

in his mind what he meant to express. He pursued the same 
method in respect to other composition ; and he occasionally 
would walk several times about his apartment before he had 
rounded a period to his taste. ^ He has pleasantly remarked 
to me, that it sometimes cost him many a turn before he 
could throw a sentiment into a form that gratified his own 
criticism. His systematic habit of arrangement in point of 
style, assisted, in his instance, by an excellent memory and 
correct judgment, is much to be recommended to those who 
aspire to any perfection in writing. 

It may, perhaps, not be quite uninteresting to the readers 
of these Memoirs, to know that I found Mr. Gibbon at 
Lausanne ^ in possession of an excellent house ; the view from 
which, and from the terrace, was so uncommonly beautiful, 
that even his own pen would with difficulty describe the scene 
which it commanded. This prospect comprehended every- 
thing vast and magnificent, which could be furnished by the 
finest mountains among the Alps, the most extensive view 
of the Lake of Geneva, with a beautifully varied and culti- 
vated country, adorned by numerous villas, and picturesque 
buildings, intermixed with beautiful masses of stately trees. 
Here my friend received us with an hospitality and kindness 
which I can never forget. The best apartments of the house 
were appropriated to our use ; the choicest society of the place 
was sought for, to enliven our visit, and render every day of it 
cheerful and agreeable. It was impossible for any man to be 
more esteemed and admired than Mr. Gibbon was at Lausanne. 
The preference he had given to that place, in adopting it 
for a residence, rather than his own country, was felt and 
acknowledged by all the inhabitants ; and he may have been 
said almost to have given the law to a set of as willing subjects 
as any man ever presided over. In return for the deference 
shown to him, he mixed, without any affectation, in all the 
society, I mean all the best society, that Lausanne afforded ; 
he could indeed command it, and was, perhaps, for that reason 

'^[A/iU p. 20I.] -[In the summer of 1791.] 



1791-93] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 247 

the more partial to it ; for he often declared that he liked 
society more as a relaxation from study, than as expecting to 
derive from it amusement or instruction ; that to books he 
looked for improvement, not to living persons. But this I con- 
sidered partly as an answer to my expressions of wonder, that 
a man who might choose the most various and most generally 
improved society in the world, namely, in England, should 
prefer the very limited circle of Lausanne, which he never 
deserted, but for an occasional visit to M. and Madame 
Necker. It must not, however, be understood, that in 
choosing Lausanne for his home, he was insensible to the 
value of a residence in England : he was not in possession of 
an income which corresponded with his notions of ease and 
comfort in his own country. In Switzerland, his fortune was 
ample. 1 To this consideration of fortune may be added 
another which also had its weight ; from early youth Mr. 
Gibbon had contracted a partiality for foreign taste and 
foreign habits of life, which made him less a stranger abroad 
than he was, in some respects, in his native country. This 
arose, perhaps, from having been out of England from his 
sixteenth to his twenty-first year ; yet, when I came to 
Lausanne, I found him apparently without relish for French 
society. During the stay I made with him he renewed his 
intercourse with the principal French who were at Lausanne ; 
of whom there happened to be a considerable number, dis- 
tinguished for rank or talents ; many indeed respectable for 
both. ... In the social and singularly pleasant months that 
I passed with Mr. Gibbon, he enjoyed his usual cheerfulness, 
with good health. After he left England, in 1788, he had 
had a severe attack, mentioned in one of the foregoing letters,^ 
of an erysipelas, which at last settled in one of his legs, and 
left something of a dropsical tendency ; for at this time I first 
perceived a considerable degree of swelling about the ankle. 

1 [Ante, p. 215.] 

2 Misc. Works, i., 310, 316. — SHEFFIELD. [Corres., ii. , 221, 233. In Misc. 
Works, i., 310, the date 1790 is wrong. The letter was an answer to Lord 
Sheffield's of 3rd Jan., 1791.] 



248 EDWARD GIBBON [i793 

I must ever regard it as the most endearing proof of his 
sensibility, and of his possessing the true spirit of friendship, 
that after having relinquished the thought of his intended 
visit, he hastened to England, in spite of increasing im- 
pediments, to soothe me by the most generous sympathy, 
and to alleviate my domestic affliction ^ ; neither his great 
corpulency,^ nor his extraordinary bodily infirmities, nor any 
other consideration, could prevent him a moment from resolv- 
ing on an undertaking that might have deterred the most 
active young man. With an alertness by no means natural 
to him, he, almost immediately, undertook a circuitous journey, 
along the frontiers of an enemy, worse than savage, within the 
sound of their cannon, within the range of the light troops of 
the different armies, and through roads ruined by the enormous 
machinery of war.^ 



1 [For the death of Lady Sheffield see ante, p. 239, n. 

Sainte-Beuve says of Gibbon's letters to the widower on hearing the sad 
news : " Quelques lettres meme, les dernieres, ont des accents d'^motion qu'on 
n'attendrait pas ; celle qu'il 6crit a lord Sheffield a la premiere nouvelle de son 
malheur, et au moment de partir pour le rejoindre, est belle et touchante ; on 
dirait presque qu'un &lair de religion y a pass6 '\{Causeries, viii. , 471). 

The following is the passage which touched Sainte-Beuve : ' ' But she is now 
at rest ; and if there be a future state her mild virtues have surely entitled her to 
the reward of pure and perfect felicity" {_Co?-res., ii. , 378). 

Lord Sheffield consoled himself by a second wife, and,' on losing her, by a 
third {Girlhood of M. J. Hoh-oyd, pp. 310, 395, n.)^^ 

2 ["Mr. Gibbon," wrote Mme. D'Arblay, "has cheeks of such prodigious 
chubbiness that they envelope his nose so completely as to render it in profile 
absolutely invisible. Yet, with these Brobdignatious cheeks his neat little feet 
are of a miniature description, and with these, as soon as I turned round, he 
hastily described a quaint sort of circle with small quick steps, and a dapper gait, 
as if to mark the alacrity of his approach " {Memoirs of Dr. Burtiey, ii., 224). 

Sainte-Beuve copies the following description of him by Garat, allowing at 
the same time that it is overcharged : ' ' L'auteur de la grande et superbe 
Histoire de I' Empire romain avait a peine quatre pieds sept a huit pouces ; le 
tronc immense de son corps a gros ventre de Silene (^tait pos6 sur cette espece de 
jambes greles qu'on appelley???/;?^ ; ses pieds assez en dedans pour que la pointe 
du droit p<it embarrasser sou vent la pointe du gauche, ^taient assez longs et 
assez larges pour servir de socle k une statue de cinq pieds six pouces. Au 
milieu de son visage, pas plus gros que le poing, la racine de son nez s'enfonpait 
dans le crine plus profond^ment que celle du nez d'un Kalmouck, et ses yeux, 
tres vifs, mais tr6s petits, se perdaient dans les m^mes profondeurs" {Causeries, 
viii., 440).] 

s [" Frankfort, May 19, 1793. — And here I am in good health and spirits, after 
one of the easiest, safest, and pleasantest journies which I ever performed in my 
whole life ; not the appearance of an enemy, and hardly the appearance of a 
war. Yet I hear, as I am writing, the cannon of the siege of Mayence, at the 



1793] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 249 

The readiness with which he engaged in this kind office of 
friendship, at a time when a selfish spirit might have pleaded 
a thousand reasons for declining so hazardous a journey, con- 
spired, with the peculiar charms of his society, to render his 
arrival a cordial to my mind. I had the satisfaction of finding 
that his own delicate and precarious health had not suffered 
in the service of his friend. He arrived in the beginning of 
June at my house in Downing Street in good health ; and 
after passing about a month with me there, we settled at 
Sheffield Place for the remainder of the summer ; where his 
wit, learning, and cheerful politeness delighted a great variety 
of characters. 

Although he was inclined to represent his health as better 
than it really was, his habitual dislike to motion appeared to 
increase ; his inaptness to exercise confined him to the library 
and dining-room, and there he joined my friend, Mr. 
Frederick North,i in pleasant arguments against exercise in 
general.^ He ridiculed the unsettled and restless disposition 

distance of twenty miles, and long, very long, will it be heard" [Corres., ii., 
382). 

" Brussels, May, 27, 1793. — This day, between two and three o'clock in the 
afternoon, I am arrived at this place in excellent preservation. My expedition, 
which is now drawing to a close, has been a journey of perseverance rather 
than speed, of some labour since Frankfort, but without the smallest degree of 
difficulty or danger. As I have every morning been seated in the chaise soon 
after sun-rise, I propose indulging to-morrow till eleven o'clock, and going that 
day no farther than Ghent. On Wednesday the 29th instant I shall reach 
Ostend in good time, just eight days, according to my former reckoning, from 
Frankfort" [ib., p. 383).] 

1 [Third son of the Prime Minister ; afterwards fifth Earl of Guilford. Lord 
Sheffield's elder daughter, in the autumn of 1793, thus writes of him and 
Sylvester Douglas (mentioned below), afterwards Lord Glenbervie : "Mr. 
Douglas with his Greek and Latin, and Fred North with his Islands of Ithaca 
and Corfu, have put him [Gibbon] quite in good humour, and they are much 
more entertaining, having him to draw them out. ... It was impossible to 
have selected three beaux who could have been more agreeable, whether their 
conversation was serious or trifling" [Girlhood of M. J. Holroyd, pp. 239, 242).] 

2 [Gibbon after describing his failure in the riding-school [ante, p. 86) con- 
tinued : " Many precious hours were employed in my closet which, at the same 
age, are wasted on horseback by the strenuous idleness of my countrymen" 
[Auio., p. 236). 

On July 2, 1793, Miss Holroyd wrote : " Gibbon is a mortal enemy to any 
persons taking a walk" [Girlhood, etc., p. 225). 

' ' Gibbon had been staying some time with Lord Sheffield in the country ; 
and when he was about to go away, the servants could not find his hat. ' Bless 
me,' said Gibbon, ' I certainly left it in the hall on my arrival here.' He had 



250 EDWARD GIBBON [ms 

that summer, the most uncomfortable, as he said, of all 
seasons, generally gives to those who have the free use of their 
limbs. Such arguments were little required to keep society, 
Mr. Jekyll,! Mr. Douglas, etc., within doors, when his company 
was only there to be enjoyed ; for neither the fineness of the 
season, nor the most promising parties of pleasure, could tempt 
the company of either sex to desert him. 

Those who have enjoyed the society of Mr. Gibbon will 
agree Avith me, that his conversation was still more captivating 
than his writings. Perhaps no man ever divided time more 
fairly between literary labour and social enjoyment ; and hence, 
probably he derived his peculiar excellence of making his very 
extensive knowledge contribute, in the highest degree, to the 
use or pleasure of those with whom he conversed. He united, 
in the happiest manner imaginable, two characters which are 
not often found in the same person, the profound scholar 
and the peculiarly agreeable companion. . . . 

Excepting a visit to Lord Egremont ^ and Mr. Hayley,^ 
whom he particularly esteemed, Mr. Gibbon was not absent 
from Sheffield Place till the beginning of October, when we 

not stirred out of doors during the whole of the visit" (Rogers's Table-Talk, 

P- "S)- 

His letter showed that he had not, in his latter years, always wholly neglected 
exercise. At Brighton he wrote in 1781 : "I walk sufSciently morning and 
evening". At Hampton Court he wrote in 1782: "Every morning I walk a 
mile or more before breakfast " {Corres., ii., 3, 23).] 

1 [' ' Mr. Jekyll is a great favourite of Mr. G. , which is rather surprising, as 
the latter does not, in general, show a predilection for those who are less 
qualified for hearers than orators" [Glrlkood of M. J. Holroyd, p. 253). 

' ' Jekyll was celebrated for his wit ; but it was of that kind which amuses 
only for the moment. I remember that when Lady Cork gave a party at 
which she wore a most enormous plume, Jekyll said, ' She was exactly like a 
shuttle-cock — all cork and feathers'" (Rogers's Table-Talk, p. 105). For 
" Jekyll, the wag of law, the scribblers' pride " with " his own book of sarcasms 
ready made," see The Rolliad, ed. 1799, pp. 219, 221.] 

2 [Horace Walpole (to whose niece Lord Egremont got engaged) wrote of 
him in 1780 : "He is eight-and-twenty, is handsome, and has between twenty 
and thirty thousand a year". Three weeks later Walpole wrote: "I must 
notify the rupture of our great match. Lord Egremont, who proves a most 
worthless young fellow, and is as weak and irresolute," etc. (Walpole's Letters, 
vii., 414, 421). 

Gibbon, who in 1775 had found him at Up-Park, " and four score fox-hounds," 
described him as " civil and sensible " {Corres., i., 247, 249).] 

•^ [Ante, pp. 180, 230. Miss Holroyd wrote on August 2, 1793 : " ' Le grand 
Gibbon' arrived yesterday from Mr. Hayley's" (Girlhood, etc., p. 227).] 



1793] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 251 

were reluctantly obliged to part with him, that he might 
perform his engagement to Mrs. Gibbon at Bath, the widow of 
his father, who had early deserved, and invariably retained, 
his affection.^ From Bath he proceeded to Lord Spencer's at 
Althorp, a famiily which he always met with uncommon 
satisfaction.^ He continued in good health during the whole 
summer, and in excellent spirits (I never knew him enjoy 
better) ; and when he went from Sheffield Place, little did I 
imagine it would be the last time I should have the inex- 
pressible pleasure of seeing him there in full possession of 
health. 

The few following short letters, though not important in 
themselves, will fill up this part of the narrative better, and 
more agreeably, than anything which I can substitute in their 
place. 

Edward Gibbon, Esq., to the Right Hon. Lord Sheffield. 

October 2, 1793. 

The Cork Street hotel has answered its recommendation ; 
it is clean, convenient, and quiet. My first evening was 
passed at home in a very agreeable tete-d-tite with my friend 
Elmsley.^ Yesterday I dined at Craufurd's * with an excellent 
set, in which were Pelham ^ and Lord Egremont. I dine 

^lA>zie, p. 113. On his way to Althorp he passed a night at the Star Inn 
(now the Clarendon Hotel), Oxford {Carres., ii. , 391).] 

'^[Earl Spencer and his wife stayed a month at Lausanne in 1785. " He is a 
valuable man," wrote Gibbon, " and where he is familiar, a pleasant companion ; 
she a charming woman, who, with sense and spirit, has the simplicity and play- 
fulness of a child " {ib. , ii. , 135). How " valuable " he was he showed later on 
as First Lord of the Admiralty. Though he was not in office at the time of 
Nelson's last and greatest victory, nevertheless it might be said of him, the 
descendant of Marlborough, that with Pitt he 

' ' bade the conqueror go forth 
And launched that thunderbolt of war 
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar". 
" She used playfully to call Nelson her bull-dog " {Memoir of Viscount Althorp, 
p. 20). She had known Johnson (Boswell's Joh?ison, iii. , 425, «.).] 

'^{^.inte, p. 194.] ^{Post, p. 265.] 

5 [Probably Thomas Pelham, afterwards second Earl of Chichester {Corres., 
ii., 60).] 



252 EDWAED GIBBON ims 

to-day with my Portuguese friend, Madame de Sylva,^ at 
Grenier's ; most probably with Lady Webster,^ whom I met 
last night at Devonshire-House ; a constant, though late, 
resort of society. The Duchess ^ is as good, and Lady 
Elizabeth as seducing as ever. No news whatsoever. You 
will see in the papers Lord Hervey's memorial. I love vigour, 
but it is surely a strong measure to tell a gentleman you have 
resolved to pass the winter in his house.* London is not 
disagreeable ; yet I shall probably leave it Saturday, If any 
thing should occur, I will write. Adieu ; ever yours. 

To the same. 

Sunday afternoon I left London and lay at Reading, and 
Monday in very good time I reached this place, after a very 
pleasant airing ; and am always so much delighted and im- 
proved, with this union of ease and motion, that, were not 
the expense enormous, I would travel every year some hundred 
miles, more especially in England.^ I passed the day with 

1 [A pretty Portuguese, with whom, according to Miss Holroyd, Gibbon was 
" desperately in love" (Girlhood, etc., p. 82).] 

2 [In the original, "with the well-washed feet of Lady W. " [Corres., ii., 388). 
For the explanation of this see The Girlhood of M. J. Holroyd, p. 239. In 1797, 
being divorced from her husband, she married the third Lord Holland [Annual 
Register, 1797, ii., 10). She is described in that passage where Macaulay, 
writing of Holland House, tells how " the last survivors of our generation with 
peculiar fondness will recall that venerable chamber, in which all the antique 
gravity of a college library was so singularly blended with all that female grace 
and wit could devise to embellish a drawing-room" (Macaulay's Essays, ed. 
1874, iii., 285).] 

"* [The beautiful Duchess of Devonshire whom Reynolds and Gainsborough 
painted.] 

"* [Lord Hervey, the English Minister at Florence, in a Memorial published 
in The Morning Chronicle, Oct. 2, 1793, required that the French Minister 
should be dismissed, and that all trade with France should cease. The English 
fleet would enforce obedience, if necessary, and at the same time would protect 
the Tuscan ships.] 

5[" In the afternoon, as we were driven rapidly along in the post-chaise. Dr. 
Johnson said to me, ' Life has not many things better than this ' " (Boswell's 
Johnson, ii. , 453). 

In Paterson's British Itinerary, ed. 1800, Preface, p. 7, the price of a post- 
chaise and pair is stated to be nine pence a mile, but in many places two pence, 
three pence, four pence more. To this was added the government duty of three 
pence per mile, and the driver's payment of a shilling or eighteen pence for each 
stage of ten or twelve miles. In addition to this there were turnpike tolls, and 
the payments to ostlers. In the Penny Cyclopcedia for 1840 (xviii. , 460) the total 



1793] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 253 

Mrs. G. yesterday. In mind and conversation she is just the 
same as twenty years ago. She has spirits, appetite, legs, and 
eyes, and talks of living till ninety.^ I can say from my 
heart, Amen.^ We dine at two, and remain together till 
nine ; but, although we have much to say, I am not sorry that 
she talks of introducing a third or fourth actor. Lord Spenser 
expects me about the 20th ; but if I can do it without offence, 
I shall steal away two or three days sooner, and you shall 
have advice of my motions. The troubles of Bristol have 
been serious and bloody. I know not who was in fault ; but 
I do not like appeasing the mob by the extinction of the toll, 
and the removal of the Hereford militia, who had done their 
duty. 3 Adieu. The girls must dance at Tunbridge. What 
would dear little aunt * say if I was to answer her letter ? 
Ever yours, etc. 

York House, Bath, October 9, 1793. 

I still follow the old style, though the Convention has 
abolished the Christian sera, with months, weeks, days, etc.*^ 

To the same. 

York House, Bath, October 13, 1793. 

I AM as ignorant of Bath in general as if I were still at 
Sheffield. My impatience to get away makes me think it 

cost is given as one shilling and ten pence a mile. As Bath is 107 miles from 
London the charge for posting alone would, at this rate, have amounted to 
nearly ;^io. To this must be added the charges of the inns. Gibbon lay one 
night at Reading, and took two servants with him.] 

1 She was then in her eightieth year. — Sheffield. 

^[Ante, p. 113, «. 2.] 

•' [The trustees of the bridge tolls, in letting them a year earlier, had given 
notice that they were to be levied for the last time. Nevertheless they were 
continued. The mob three days running destroyed the gates ; the militia fired ; 
"about fifteen persons were killed, and near forty wounded". "The tolls 
were abandoned ; some of the principal citizens having offered to present to the 
trustees the sum for which they were let." Nevertheless the mob broke the 
windows of the Town-House, but dispersed on the arrival of more troops 
(Ann. Reg., 1793, ii., 4S).] 

4 [Lord Sheffield's sister, Sarah Martha Holroyd, the Aunt "Serena" of 
The Girlhood of M. J. Holroyd.'] 

5 [On Sept. 20, 1793, the Convention decreed that "the common or vulgar 
era is abolished" [Ann. Reg., i7g2» "•. 4^)-] 



254 EDWARD GIBBON [ms 

better to devote my whole time to Mrs. G.^ ; and dear little 
aunt, whom I tenderly salute, will excuse me to her two 
friends, Mrs, Hartley and Preston, if I make little or no use 
of her kind introduction. A tete-d-tSte of eight or nine hours 
every day is rather difficult to support ; yet I do assure you, 
that our conversation flows with more ease and spirit when 
we are alone, than when any auxiliaries are summoned to our 
aid. She is indeed a wonderful woman, and I think all her 
faculties of the mind stronger, and more active, than I have 
ever known them. I have settled, that ten full days may be 
sufficient for all the purposes of our interview. I should there- 
fore depart next Friday, the eighteenth instant, and am indeed 
expected at Althorpe on the twentieth ; but I may possibly 
reckon without my host, as I have not yet apprised Mrs. G. of 
the term of my visit ; and will certainly not quarrel with her 
for a short delay. Adieu. I must have some political specula- 
tions. The campaign, at least on our side, seems to be at an 
end. 2 Ever yours. 

To the same. 
Althorp Library,^ Tuesday, four o'clock. 

We have so completely exhausted this morning among the 
first editions of Cicero, that I can mention only my departure 
hence to-morrow, the sixth instant. I shall lie quietly at 
Woburn, and reach London in good time Thursday. By the 
following post I will write somewhat more largely. My stay 

^ [When he had got away he wrote to her : " I wish that I could have given 
myself a larger scope for my visit to Bath " (Corj-es. , ii. , 391).] 

2 [The allies under the Duke of York and the Prince of Coburg had been de- 
feated in the Low Countries" [Ann. Reg., 1793, i. , 273).] 

3 [At Althorp, ' ' in the spacious suite of rooms Lord Spencer placed that 
splendid collection of books which alone sufficed to give him a reputation 
throughout Europe. It was estimated to contain forty or fifty thousand 
volumes, amongst which were the choicest treasures of bibliography." Once, 
when he was overworked at the Admiralty, his physician "prescribed a day's 
cessation from business, and a play of Euripides, which treatment was entirely 
successful" {Me7noir of Viscount Althorp, pp. 15-16). 

The library has been bought by Mrs. John Rylands of Longford Hall, 
Stretford, and presented by her to the City of Manchester, together with a 
building worthy of holding it.] 



1793] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 255 

in London will depend, partly on my amusement, and your 
being fixed at Sheffield Place ; unless you think I can be 
comfortably arranged for a week or two with you at Brighton. 
The military remarks seem good ; but now to what purpose ? 
Adieu. I embrace and much rejoice in Louisa's improvement. 
Lord Ossory ^ was from home at Farning Woods. 

To the same. 

London, Friday, November 8, four o'clock. 

Walpole has just delivered yours, and I hasten the direction, 
that you may not be at a loss. I will write to-morrow, but I 
am now fatigued, and rather unwell. ^ Adieu. I have not 
seen a soul except Elmsley. 

To the same. 

St. James's Street, November 9, 1793. 

As I dropt yesterday the word imwell, I flatter myself that 
the family would have been a little alarmed by my silence to- 
day. I am still awkward, though without any suspicions of 
gout, and have some idea of having recourse to medical advice. 
Yet I creep out to-day in a chair, to dine with Lord Lucan.^ 
But as it will be literally my first going down stairs, and as 
scarcely any one is apprised of my arrival, I know nothing, I 
have heard nothing, I have nothing to say. My present 
lodging, a house of Elmsley's is cheerful, convenient, some- 
what dear, but not so much as a hotel, a species of habitation 
for which I have not conceived any great affection.^ Had you 

^ [He was a member of the Literary Club (Boswell's Johnson, i. , 479).] 

2 [Chesterfield wrote on October 8, 1755 : "I am what you call in Ireland, 
and a very good expression I think it is, unwell" (Chesterfield's Misc. Works, 
iv. , 263). Unwell is not in Johnson's Dictionary. ] 

■^ [He was a member of the Literary Club (Boswell's Johnson, i. , 479). He 
it was who told the story how Johnson said, at the sale of Thrale's brewery : 
' ' We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of 
growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice " [ib. , iv. , 87). ] 

* [This is one of the earliest instances to be found of the use of kolel for inn. 
Hotel is not in Johnson's Dictionaiy. Gibbon was not of Johnson's opinion 
when he said : " No, Sir ; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man 
by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn " (Boswell's 
Johnson, ii., 452).] 



256 EDWARD GIBBON [1793 

been stationaiy at Sheffield, you would have seen me before 
the twentieth ; for I am tired of rambling, and pant for my 
home ; that is to say for your house. But whether I shall 
have courage to brave . . J and a bleak down, time only can 
discover. Adieu. I wish you back to Sheffield Place. The 
health of dear Louisa is doubtless the first object ; but I did 
not expect Brighton after Tunbridge. Whenever dear little 
aunt is separate from you, I shall certainly write to her ; but 
at present how is it possible ? Ever yours. 

To the same at Brighton. 
St. James's Street, November 11, 1793. 

1 MUST at length withdraw the veil before my state of 
health, though the naked truth may alarm you more than a 
fit of the gout. Have you never observed, through my iii- 
expressibles, a large prominency, circa genitalia, which, as it was 
not at all painful, and very little troublesome, I had strangely 
neglected for many years ^ .'' But since my departure from 
Sheffield Place, it has increased (most stupendously), is in- 
creasing, and ought to be diminished. ^ Yesterday I sent for 
Farquhar,* who is allowed to be a very skillful surgeon. After 

i[In the original, P. of W. [Corres., ii. , 393). On August 25 Miss Holroyd 
described a drive across the downs to the Devil's Dyke, near Brighton, to see a 
field day, where the Prince of Wales commanded the troops. On Nov. i she 
wrote : "It you like an officer there will be plenty at Brighton, for the Prince's 
Regt. stays there all the winter. I hope we shall not be too fond of the P. , and 
then the residence will not be unpleasant, if we find anybody we know " {Girl- 
hood of M. J. Holroyd, pp. 234, 247). It was her father who was likely to "be 
too fond of the Prince ". See ib. , p. 228.] 

2 [Soon after Gibbon's death Malone wrote : " He thought, he said, when he 
was at Althorp last Christmas [he was there in October] the ladies looked a 
little oddly. The fact is that poor Gibbon, strange as it may seem, imagined 
himself rather well-looking, and his first motion in a mixed company of ladies 
and gentlemen was to the fire-place, against which he planted his back, and 
then, taking out his snuff-box, began to hold forth. In his late unhappy situa- 
tion it was not easy for the ladies to find out where they could direct their eyes 
with safety" {Hist. MSS. Com., 13th Report, App. viii. , p. 231).] 

•^[A parody on Dunning's motion {anie, p. 207).] 

■iNow Sir Walter Farquhar, Baronet.— Sheffield. [There was another 
Farquhar, "not of the Faculty," whom nevertheless Gibbon advised young 
S6very to consult (Read's Hist Studies, ii. , 471). See also Girlhood of M. J. 
Holroyd, pp. 218, 322, 356.] 



1793] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 257 

viewing and palping,^ he very seriously desired to call in 
assistance^ and has examined it again to-day with Mr, Cline, 
a surgeon, as he says, of the first eminence. ^ They both pro- 
nounce it a hydrocele (a collection of water), which must be let 
out by the operation of tapping ; but, from its magnitude and 
long neglect, they think it a most extraordinary case, and 
wish to have another surgeon, Dr. Baillie,^ present. If the 
business should go off smoothly, I shall be delivered from my 
burthen (it is almost as big as a small child) and walk about 
in four or five days with a truss. But the medical gentlemen, 
who never speak quite plain, insinuate to me the possibility 
of an inflammation, of fever, etc. I am not appalled at the 
thoughts of the operation, which is fixed for Wednesday next, 
twelve o'clock ; but it has occurred to me, that you might 
wish to be present, before and afterwards, till the crisis was 
past ; and to give you that opportunity, I shall solici : a delay 
till Thursday, or even Friday. In the meanwhile, I crawl 
about with some labour, and much indecency, to Devonshire 
House (where I left all the fine ladies making flannel waist- 
coats ^) ; Lady Lucan's, etc. Adieu. Varnish the business 
for the ladies : yet I am afraid it will be public ; — the ad- 
vantage of being notorious. Ever yours. 

^[Gibbon anglicises the French /«/j*^r — "toucher avec la main k plusieurs 
reprises et en pressant l^g^rement" (Littr6). Writing of his proposed retire- 
ment to Lausanne he said : " Je me suis livr^ au charme d^licieux de con- 
templer, de sonder, de palper ce bonheur" [Corres., ii. , 50).] 

2 [H. C. Robinson [Diary, ii. , 251) says that when his sister in 1823 consulted 
Abernethy, finding Cline had seen her, he said : " Why come to me then ? You 
need not go to any one after him. He is a sound man." 

' ' Lord Lansdowne told of his having dined with Lord Erskine, just after 
his recovering from some complaint, of which he had been cui-ed by two 
leeches ; his launching out in praise of those leeches, and at last starting up and 
ringing the bell, saying, ' I'll show them to you ' ; the leeches then brought up 
in a bottle, and sent round the table with the wine. ' I call one of them Cline,' 
said Lord Erskine, ' and the other Home ' (the great surgeons of the day, Mr. 
Cline and Sir Everard Home)" {Memoirs of Thomas Moore, ed. 1854, vi., 243).] 

3 [Baillie was the nephew of John and William Hunter, and the brother of 
Joanna Baillie.] 

■^For the soldiers in Flanders. — Sheffield. {^The Annual Register, 1793, i., 
5, speaking of " the rigorous winter which was felt throughout Europe," says 
that the French levies suffered less, " as they had long been used to a course of 
living that qualified them to endure almost every species of hardship. From 
the high price of fuel they were particularly inured to the bearing of cold."] 

17 



258 EDWARD GIBBON [i793 

Immediately on receiving the last letter, I went the same 
day from Brighthelmstone to London, and was agreeably 
surprised to find that Mr. Gibbon had dined at Lord Lucan's 
and did not return to his lodgings, where I waited for him till 
eleven o'clock at night. Those who have seen him within 
the last eight or ten years, must be surprised to hear that he 
could doubt, whether his disorder was apparent.^ When he 
returned to England in 1787, I was greatly alarmed by a pro- 
digious increase, which I always conceived to proceed from a 
rupture. I did not understand why he, who had talked with 
me on every other subject relative to himself and his affairs 
without reserve, should never in any shape hint at a malady 
so troublesome ; but on speaking to his valet de chambre, he 
told me, Mr. Gibbon could not bear the least allusion to that 
subject, and never would suifer him to notice it. I consulted 
some medical persons, who with me supposing it to be a 
rupture, were of opinion that nothing could be done, and said 
that he surely must have had advice, and of course had taken 
all necessary precautions. He now talked freely with me 
about his disorder; which, he said, began in the year I76l ; 
that he then consulted Mr. Hawkins,^ the surgeon, who did 
not decide whether it was the beginning o£ a rupture, or an 
hydrocele ; but he desired to see Mr. Gibbon again when he 
came to town. Mr. Gibbon, not feeling any pain, nor suffer- 
ing any inconvenience, as he said, never returned to Mr. 
Hawkins ; and although the disorder continued to increase 
gradually, and of late years very much indeed, he never 
mentioned it to any person, however incredible it may appear, 
from l76l to November 1793.^ I told him, that I had always 

1 [A fortnight before his death Miss Holroyd wrote : ' ' He seems now to be 
sensible of the peculiarity of his appearance" {Girlhood, etc., p. 259).] 

2 [Cagsar Hawkins. Horace Walpole, in 1756, describing how Lord Digby 
was operated on for the stone, says {Letters, iii. , 9) : " He was cut by a new 
instrument of Hawkins, which reduces an age of torture to but one minute".] 

3 [See ante, p. 240, where Gibbon records : " Since I have escaped from the 
long perils of my childhood the serious advice of a physician has seldom been 
requisite ". 

"Mr. Fox had little confidence in medical skill, and less curiosity, even on 
subjects connected with the health and management of the human body, than 
on any other. He was consequently very averse to relate symptoms which put 



1793] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 259 

supposed there was no doubt of its being a rupture ; his 
answer was, that he never thought so, and that he, and the 
surgeons who attended him, were of opinion that it was an 
hydrocele. It is now certain that it was originally a rupture, 
and that an hydrocele had lately taken place in the same part ; 
and it is remarkable that his legs, which had been swelled 
about the ankle, particularly one of them, since he had the 
erisipelas in 1790, recovered their former shape, as soon as 
the water appeared in another part, which did not happen 
till between the time he left Sheffield Place, in the beginning 
of October, and his arrival at Althorpe, towards the latter end 
of that month. On the Thursday following the date of his 
last letter, Mr. Gibbon was tapped for the first time ; four 
quarts of a transparent watery fluid were discharged by that 
operation. Neither inflammation nor fever ensued ; the tumour 
was diminished to nearly half its size ; the remaining part was a 
soft ii'regular mass. I had been with him two days before, 
and I continued with him above a week after the first tapping, 
during which time he enjoyed his usual spirits ; and the three 
medical gentlemen who attended him will recollect his 
pleasantry, even during the operation. He was abroad again 
in a few days, but the water evidently collecting very fast, it 
was agreed that a second puncture should be made a fortnight 
after the first. Knowing that I should be wanted at a meet- 
ing in the country, he pressed me to attend it, and promised 
that soon after the second operation was performed he would 
follow me to Sheffield Place ; but before he arrived I received 
the two following letters : — 

Mr. Gibbon to Lord Sheffield, at Brighton. 

St. James's Street, Nov. 25, 1793. 

Though Farquhar has promised to write you a line, I con- 
ceive you may not be sorry to hear directly from me. The 

him to no immediate inconvenience." He never consulted a physician about 
the earlier symptoms of an illness which two years later carried him off (Lord 
Holland's Memoirs, etc. , i. , 250). 

Grote "did not regard as of any importance," and so did not show to his 
doctor, a swelling, which, being neglected, ended his life {Life of Grote, p. 326).] 



260 EDWARD GIBBON [ms 

operation of yesterday was much longer, more searching, and 
more painful than the former ; but it has eased and lightened 
me to a much greater degree. ^ No inflammation, no fever, 
a delicious night, leave to go abroad to-morrow, and to go 
out of town when I please, en attendant the future mea- 
sures of a radical cure. If you hold your intention of return- 
ing next Saturday to Sheffield Place, I shall probably join 
you about the Tuesday following, after having passed two 
nights at Beckenhami.^ The Devons are going to Bath, and 
the hospitable Craufurd follows them. I passed a delightful 
day with Burke ; an odd one with Monsignor Erskine, the 
Pope's Nuncio. Of public news, you and the papers know 
more than I do. We seem to have strong sea and land hopes ; 
nor do I dislike the Royalists having beaten the Sans Culottes, 
and taken Dol.^ How many minutes will it take to guillotine 
the seventy-three new members of the Convention, who are 
now arrested * ? Adieu ; ever yours. 

St. James's-St., Nov. SO, 1793. 

It will not be in my power to reach Sheffield Place quite 
so soon as I wished and expected. Lord Auckland informs 

1 Three quarts of the same fluid as before were discharged. — Sheffield. 

2 Eden Farm. — Sheffield. [Lord Auckland lived there. Gibbon, in 
writing to him to propose his visit, said : " I revere Lady Auckland as a second 
Eve, the mother of nations" {Misc. Works, ii., 495). Lord Sheffield says in 
a note : "The allusion is to the births of her children in England, America, 
Ireland, France, Spain and Holland ". The second allusion to Eden Farm and 
to Lord Auckland's family name of Eden he does not notice.] 

3 [In The Morning Chronicle, Nov. 25, 1793, news is reported from the Jacobins 
of Dinan that "the inhabitants of Dol have almost all fled to the fort of 
Chateauneuf and to Saint Malo. We are going to remove to the latter the 
1,200 English prisoners who are here."] 

* [In the same paper under date of Paris, Nov. 13, Montaut moved that " on 
the 2ist instant the Committee of General Safety give a report on the 73 
deputies put in a state of arrest ". Gibbon apparently misunderstood the para- 
graph, which must refer to the Girondins, who had been arrested many months 
earlier. " Those seventy-three Secret Protesters, suddenly one day, are reported 
upon, are decreed accused ; the Convention-doors being ' previously shut,' 
that none implicated might escape" (Carlyle's French Revolution, ed. 1857, ii., 
276. See also ib., pp. 254, 262). On Oct. 30, "twenty-one of them were 
guillotined in thirty-seven minutes, between eleven and twelve in the forenoon " 
(Ann. Reg., 1793, ii., 51). It was the report of what had been done that was 
now moved for.] 



1793] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 261 

me that he shall be at Lambeth next week, Tuesday, 
Wednesday, and Thursday. I have therefore agreed to dine 
at Beckenham on Friday. Saturday will be spent there, and 
unless some extraordinary temptation should detain me an- 
other day, you will see me by four o'clock Sunday the ninth 
of December. I dine to-morrow with the Chancellor at 
Hampstead,^ and, what I do not like at this time of the year, 
without a proposal to stay all night. Yet I would not refuse, 
more especially as I had denied him on a former day. My 
health is good ; but I shall have a final interview with 
Farquhar before I leave town. We are still in darkness about 
Lord Howe and the French ships, but hope seems to pre- 
ponderate.^ Adieu. Nothing that relates to Louisa can be 
forgotten. Ever yours. 

To the Same. 

St. James's Street, Dec. 6, 1793. 
16 du mois Frimaire. 

The man tempted me and I did eat^ — and that man is no less than 
the Chancellor. I dine to-day, as I intended, at Beckenham ; 
but he recalls me (the third time this week) by a dinner to- 
morrow (Saturday) with Burke and Windham, which I do not 
possess sufficient fortitude to resist. Sunday he dismisses me 
again to the aforesaid Beckenham, but insists on finding me 
there on Monday, which he will probably do, supposing there 
should be room and welcome at the Ambassador's.* I shall 
not therefore arrive at Sheffield till Tuesday, the 1 0th instant, 
and though you may perceive I do not want society or amuse- 
ment, I sincerely repine at the delay. You will likewise 

1 [Lord Loughborough {ante, p. 207), whom, at the beginning of the year, 
Gibbon had congratulated on his appointment as Lord Chancellor (A/wc. Works, 
ii. , 486). His worthless name and ill-earned titles are preserved at Hampstead 
in Wedderburne Road, Loughborough Road, and Rosslyn Hill.] 

2 [Six months later Lord Howe gained the great victory of the First of 
June.] 

2 [" The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat " [Genesis iii. 13).] 
*[Lord Auckland, Ambassador at the Hague.] 



262 EDWARD GIBBON [ms 

derive some comfort from hearing of the spirit and activity 
of my motions. Farquhar is satisfied, allows m.e to go, and 
does not think I shall be obliged to precipitate my return. 
Shall we never have anything more than hopes and rumom's 
from Lord Howe ? Ever yours. 

Mr. Gibbon generally took the opportunity of passing a 
night or two with his friend Lord Auckland/ at Eden Farm 
(ten miles from London), on his passage to Sheffield Place ; 
and notwithstanding his indisposition, he had lately made an 
excursion thither from London ; when he was much pleased 
by meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury,^ of whom he ex- 
pressed an high opinion. He returned to London, to dine 
with Lord Loughborough, to meet Mr. Burke, Mr. Windham, 
and particularly Mr. Pitt, with whom he was not acquainted ; 
and in his last journey to Sussex, he re- visited Eden Farm, 
and was much gratified by the opportunity of again seeing, 
during a whole day, Mr. Pitt, who passed the night there. 
From Lord Auckland's Mr. Gibbon proceeded to Sheffield 
Place ; and his discourse was never more brilliant, nor more 
entertaining, than on his arrival. The parallels which he 
drew, and the comparisons which he made, between the 
leading men of this country, were sketched in his best manner, 
and were infinitely interesting. However, this last visit to 
Sheffield Place became far different from any he had ever 
made before. That ready, cheerful, various, and illuminating 
conversation, which we had before admired in him, was not 
now always to be found in the library or the dining room. 
He moved with difficulty, and retired from company sooner 
than he had been used to do. On the twenty-third of 
December, his appetite began to fail him. He observed to 
me, that it was a very bad sign with him when he could not 
eat his breakfast, which he had done at all times very heartily ; 

1 [George III. described him as "an eternal intriguer" (Stanhope's Fiit, iii. , 
291).] 

2 [Dr. John Moore, Lord Auckland's brother-in-law (ib., iii., 267). See The 
Ro Iliad and Probatio7iary Odes, ed. 1799, p. 477, where he is [mentioned in A 
New Ballad entitled and called Billy Eden.'\ 



1794] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 263 

and this seems to have been the strongest expression of 
apprehension that he was ever observed to utter. A con- 
siderable degree of fever now made its appearance. Inflam- 
mation arose, from the weight and the bulk of the tumour. 
Water again collected very fast, and when the fever went off, 
he never entirely recovered his appetite even for breakfast. 
I became very uneasy indeed at his situation towards the end 
of the month, and thought it necessary to advise him to set 
out for London. He had before settled his plan to arrive 
there about the middle of January. I had company in the 
house, and we expected one of his particular friends ; but he 
was obliged to sacrifice all social pleasure to the immediate 
attention which his health required. He went to London on 
the seventh of January, and the next day I received the 
following billet ; the last he ever wrote : — 

Edward Gibbon Esq. to Lord Sheffield. 

St. James's Street, four o'clock, Tuesday. 

This date says every thing. I was almost killed between 
Sheffield Place and East Grinsted, by hard, frozen, long and 
cross ruts, that would disgrace the approach of an Indian wig- 
wam. The rest was something less painful ; and I reached 
this place half dead, but not seriously feverish, or ill. I found 
a dinner invitation from Lord Lucan ; but what are dinners 
to me ? I wish they did not know of my departure. I catch 
the flying post.^ What an effort! Adieu, till Thursday or 
Friday. 

By his own desire, I did not follow him till Thursday the 
ninth. I then found him far from well. The tumour more 
distended than before, inflamed, and ulcerated in several 
places. Remedies were applied to abate the inflammation ; 
but it was not thought proper to puncture the tumour for the 
third time, till Monday the 13th of January, when no less 

^ [" A post m flying coach, the ordinary designation for a swift stage coach ' 
(New Eng. Diet., iv., 374).] 



264 EDWARD GIBBON [i794 

than six quarts of fluid were discharged. He seemed much 
relieved by the evacuation. His spirits continued good. He 
talked, as usual, of passing his time at houses which he had 
often frequented with great pleasure, the Duke of Devon- 
shire's, Mr. Craufurd's, Lord Spenser's, Lord Lucan's, Sir 
Ralph Payne's, and Mr. Batt's ; and when I told him that I 
should not return to the country, as I had intended, he pressed 
me to go ; knowing I had an engagement there on public 
business, he said, "You may be back on Saturday, and I intend 
to go on Thursday to Devonshire-House". I had not any 
apprehension that his life was in danger, although I began to 
fear that he might not be restored to a comfortable state, and 
that motion would be very troublesome to him ; but he talked 
of a radical cure. He said, that it was fortunate the disorder 
had shown itself while he was in England, where he might 
procure the best assistance ; and if a radical cure could not be 
obtained before his return to Lausanne, there was an able 
surgeon at Geneva, who could come to tap him when it should 
be necessary. 

On Tuesday the fourteenth, when the risk of inflammation 
and fever from the last operations was supposed to be over, 
as the medical gentleman who attended him expressed no 
fears for his life, I went that afternoon part of the way to 
Sussex, and the following day reached Sheffield Place. The 
next morning, the sixteenth, I received by the post a good 
account of Mr. Gibbon, which mentioned also that he hourly 
gained strength. In the evening came a letter by express, 
dated noon that day, which acquainted me that Mr. Gibbon 
had had a violent attack the preceding night, and that it was 
not probable he could live till I came to him. I reached his 
lodgings in St. James's Street about midnight, and learned 
that my friend had expired a quarter before one o'clock that 
day, the sixteenth of January, 1 794. 

After I left him on Tuesday afternoon the fourteenth, he 
saw some company, Lady Lucan and Lady Spencer, and 
thought himself well enough at night to omit the opium 
draught, which he had been used to take for some time. He 



1794] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 265 

slept very indifferently ; before nine the next morning he 
rose, but could not eat his breakfast. However, he appeared 
tolerably well, yet complained at times of a pain in his 
stomach. At one o'clock he received a visit of an hour from 
Madame de Sylva, and at three, his friend, Mr. Craufurd, 
of Auchinames (for whom he had mentioned a particular 
regard), called, and stayed with him till past five o'clock. 
They talked, as usual, on various subjects ; and twenty hours 
before his death, Mr. Gibbon happened to fall into a con- 
versation, not uncommon with him, on the probable duration 
of his life. He said, that he thought himself a good life for 
ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years. ^ About six, he ate the 
wing of a chicken, and drank three glasses of Madeira. ^ 
After dinner he became very uneasy and impatient ; com- 
plained a good deal, and appeared so weak, that his servant 
was alarmed. Mr. Gibbon had sent to his friend and relation, 
Mr. Robert Darell,^ whose house was not far distant, desiring 
to see him, and adding, that he had something particular 
to say. But, unfortunately, this desired interview never took 
place. 

During the evening he complained much of his stomach, 
and of a disposition to vomit. Soon after nine, he took his 
opium draught, and went to bed. About ten, he complained 
of much pain, and desired that warm napkins might be 
applied to his stomach. He almost incessantly expressed a 
sense of pain till about four o'clock in the morning, when 
he said he found his stomach much easier. About seven the 
servant asked, whether he should send for Mr. Farquhar ? he 
answered no ; that he was as well as he had been the day 
before. At about half-past eight, he got out of bed, and said 

^[AnU; p. 243.] 

2[Miss Holroyd wrote on Jan. ii [Girlhood, etc., p. 260) : " The surgeons 
ordered bark every six hours, and five glasses of Madeira at dinner ". General 
Read, in 1879, was shown by M. de S6very, in his house at Lausanne (33 Rue 
de Bourg), " twenty bottles of Gibbon's own Madeira. In 1874 the wine was 
found to be still in excellent condition " [Hist. Studies, ii., 475).] 

^\_A7tte, p. 26, n. His brother Edward was one of Gibbon's executors 
{post, p. 268). One of the Darells Gibbon consulted about his investments 
{Carres., ii., 376).] 



266 EDWARD GIBBON [i794 

he was j^l^s adroit than he had been for three months past, 
and got into bed again^ without assistance, better than usual. 
About nine, he said that he would rise. The servant, however, 
persuaded him to remain in bed till Mr. Farquhar, who was 
expected at eleven, should come. Till about that hour he 
spoke with great facility. Mr. Farquhar came at the time 
appointed, and he was then visibly dying. When the valet de 
chamhre returned, after attending Mr. Farquhar out of the 
room, Mr. Gibbon said, " Pourqtioi est-ce que vous me quittez ? " 
This was about half-past eleven. At twelve, he drank some 
brandy and water from a teapot, and desired his favourite 
servant to stay with him. These were the last words he 
pronounced articulately. To the last he preserved his senses : 
and when he could no longer speak, his servant having asked 
a question, he made a sign, to show that he understood him. 
He was quite tranquil, and did not stir ; his eyes half-shut. 
About a quarter before one, he ceased to breathe.^ 

The valet de chamh-e observed, that Mr. Gibbon did not, 
at any time, show the least sign of alarm, or apprehension of 
death ; and it does not appear that he ever thought himself 
in danger, unless his desire to speak to Mr, Darell may be 
considered in that light. 

Perhaps I dwell too long on these minute and melancholy 
circumstances. Yet the close of such a life can hardly fail 
to interest every reader ^ ; and I know that the public has 
received a different and erroneous account of my friend's last 
hours. 

I can never cease to feel regret that I was not by his side 
at this awful period : a regret so strong, that I can express 
it only by borrowing (as Mr. Mason has done on a similar 
occasion ^) the forcible language of Tacitus : Mihi prceter acer- 

1 [For the surgeon's post-morf em report see Misc. Works, i., 424.] 

2 [Hannah More recorded on Jan. 19, 1794 : " Heard of the death of Mr. 
Gibbon, the calumniator of the despised Nazarene, the derider of Christianity. 
Awful dispensation ! He too was ray acquaintance. Lord, I bless Thee, con- 
sidering how much infidel acquaintance I have had, that my soul never came 
into their secret ! How many souls have his writings polluted ! Lord preserve 
others from their contagion ! "] 

^[Mason's Gray's Works, ed. 1807, ii., 319.] 



1794] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 267 

hitatem amici erepti, aiiget mcestitiam quod assidere valeludini, 
fovere deficientem, satiari vultu, complexu, non contigit.^ It is 
some consolation to me, that I did not, like Tacitus, by a 
long absence, anticipate the loss of my friend several years 
before his decease. Although I had not the mournful grati- 
fication of being near him on the day he expired, yet during 
his illness I had not failed to attend him with that assiduity 
which his genius, his virtues, and, above all, our long un- 
interrupted, and happy friendship sanctioned and demanded. 

1 [In the original: " Sed mihi filiseque ejus preeter acerbitatem parentis 
erepti," etc. (Tacitus, Agricola, c. xlv.). "As for me and thy daughter, besides 
all the bitterness of a father's loss, it increases our sorrow that it was not per- 
mitted us to watch over thy failing health, to comfort thy weakness, to satisfy 
ourselves with those looks, those embraces " (Church & Brodribb).] 



POSTSCRIPT 

Mr. Gibbon's Will is dated the 1st of October, 1791, just 
before I left Lausanne ; he distinguishes me, as usual, in the 
most flattering manner : — 

" I constitute and appoint the Right Honourable John Lord 
Sheffield, Edward Darell, Esquire, and John Thomas Batt, 
Esquire, to be the Executors of this my last Will and Testa- 
ment ; and as the execution of this trust will not be attended 
with much difficulty or trouble, I shall indulge these gentle- 
men, in the pleasure of this last disinterested service, without 
wronging my feelings, or oppressing my heir, by too light or 
too weighty a testimony of my gratitude. My obligations to 
the long and active friendship of Lord Sheffield, 1 could never 
sufficiently repay," ^ 

He then observes, that the Right Hon. Lady Eliot, of Port 
Eliot, is his nearest relation on the father's side ^ ; but that 
her three sons are in such prosperous circumstances, that he 
may well be excused for making the two children of his late 
uncle, Sir Stanier Porten,^ his heirs ; they being in a very 
different situation. He bequeaths annuities to two old 
servants, three thousand pounds, and his furniture, plate, 

1 [" Serena " Holroyd wrote the day after his death : " I have not time to 
write his own words to account for leaving the executors nothing, though it is 
expressed well, and we cannot doubt his regard for my brother" \Girlhood, 
etc., p. 265). 

Lord Sheffield's daughter shows how useful his friendship had been to 
her father : " He is a particular loss to papa. There is no other person who 
has half the iniluence that poor man had. The best sense was always guided 
by the best judgment. ... Of what unspeakable consequence would his cool 
and unprejudiced advice have been to him at this critical time. . . . Even he 
could not entirely prevent papa from taking some steps that he thought im- 
prudent ; but he had power to restrain him in some of his impetuosities ; but 
this friend gone, who is there who has the least influence over him ? " {Girl/wod, 
etc., pp. 266, 269.)] 

"^[^Ante, p. 21.] ^[Ante, p. 26, n. 3.] 

(268) 



1794] MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE 269 

etc., at Lausanne, to Mr. Wilhelm de Severy ^ ; one hundred 
guineas to the poor of Lausanne, and fifty guineas each to the 
following persons : Lady Sheffield and daughters, Maria and 
Louisa, Madame and Mademoiselle de Severy, the Count de 
Schomberg,^ Mademoiselle la Chanoinesse de Polier,^ and 
M. le Ministre Le Vade,* for the purchase of some token 
which may remind them of a sincere friend.^ 

^ [Anie, p. 236, n. Gibbon in his will says of him, " whom I wish to style by 
the endearing name of son " (Read's Hisi. Studies, ii. , 474). The Severy 
family preserve in their Chateau of Mex " a quantity of Gibbon's letter-paper, 
with the blotting-paper and quill pens in daily use " (il>. , p. 471). In their house 
at Lausanne, 33 Rue de Bourg, is " a fine kit-cat of him " {ii>. , p. 474).] 

2 [Gibbon mentions him in 1790 among the French exiles. ' ' He is a man of 
the world, of letters, and of sufficient age, since in 1753 he succeeded to Marshal 
Saxe's regiment of Dragoons " (Corres., ii. , 223).] 

3 [Deyverdun mentions some members of this family as among those who, at 
Lausanne, "font un fonds de bonne compagnie dont on ne se lasse point" 
{id., ii., 43).] 

4 [He had arranged Gibbon's library {Girlhood, etc., p. 66).] 
3 [By a will made in 1788 he left his step-mother an annuity of ;^2oo over 
and above her jointure (Auto., p. 421). In 1769 he had written to his father : 
' ' Should Mrs. G. still object to the increase of her jointure, I must leave it as 
an engagement not of law, but of honour, of gratitude and of inclination " 
(Gibbon Corres., i., 104). " Serena " Holroyd wrote soon after his death : "She 
is grieved at not being named in the will. . . . She is, not angry, but affection- 
ately grieved" (Girlhood, etc., p. 280). 

The original of this will is at the end of the Gibbon MSS. in the British 
Museum. The signature has been cut out, the gap being skilfully concealed.] 



EPITAPH OF EDWARD GIBBON 

The Remains of Mr, Gibbon were deposited in Lord Sheffield's 
Family Burial-Place, in Fletching, Sussex,^ whereon is in- 
scribed the following Epitaph, written at my request by a 
distinguished scholar, the Rev. Dr. Parr ^ : — 

EDVARDUS GIBBON 

CRITICUS ACRI INGENIO ET MULTIPLICI DOCTRINA ORNATUS 

IDEMQUE HISTORICORUM QUI FORTUNAM 

IMPERII ROMANI 

VEL LABENTIS ET INCLINATI VEL EVERSI ET FUNDITUS DELETI 

LITTERIS MANDAVERINT 

OMNIUM FACILE PRINCEPS 

CUJUS IN MORIBUS ERAT MODERATIO ANIMI 

CUM LIBERALI QUADAM SPECIE CONJUNCTA 

IN SERMONE 

MULTA [mULTvE] GRAVITATI COMITAS SUAVITER ADSPERSA 

IN SCRIPTIS 

COPIOSUM SPLENDIDUM 

CONCINNUM ORBE VERBORUM' 

ET SUMMO ARTIFICIO DISTINCTUM 

ORATIONIS GENUS 

RECONDITE EXQUISITJEQUE SENTENTIiE 

ET IN MONUMENTIS [mOMENTIs] RERUM POLITICARUM OBSERVANDIS 

ACUTA ET PERSPtCAX PRUDENTIA 

VIXIT ANNOS LVI MENS. VII DIES XXVIII 

DECESSIT XVII CAL. FEB. ANNO SACRO 

MDCCLXXXXIV 

ET IN HOC MAUSOLEO SEPULTUS EST 

EX VOLUNTATE JOHANNIS DOMINI SHEFFIELD 

QUI AMICO BENE MERENTI ET CONVICTORI HUMANISSIMO 

H. TAB. [d.S.S.] p. C. 

1 ["The funeral was conducted with the greatest simplicity at Mr. Gibbon's 
desire, only his own servants attending the hearse " {Girlhood, etc., p. 267).] 

2 [Lord Sheffield httle knew the time Parr took over his epitaphs. Writing 
to him on February ig, 1796, he hoped to include it in the Memoirs, " which," 
he said, " are likely to be published towards the middle of next month". It 

(270) 



MEMOIES OF MY LIFE 271 

was not till October, 1797, that he received it. In his modesty he asked that in 
the lines referring to himself, ' ' viri praenobilis " and ' ' de suo sumptu," originally 
inserted, should be omitted. He so little understood the Roman Calendar that 
he said there was " a mistake in respect to the time of Mr. Gibbon's death. 
That unhappy event took place on the i6th January, not on the 17th February." 
In a later letter he wrote : " I am really much edified by what you say on the 
Roman Calendar. I had never examined that subject with the accuracy you 
and Mr. Gibbon have done". His family burial-place he described as " orna- 
mented in the Gothic style " (Parr's Works, viii., 562). 

" Morum simplicitas " was in one draft of the epitaph. Fox, to whom Parr 
had sent it, wrote in reply : " How far morum simpliciias is a just account of 
Gibbon may perhaps be doubted. But in these cases we must look for the 
language rather of partiality than of strict truth " (Parr's Works, viii. , 563). 

" In lapidary inscriptions," said Johnson, "a man is not upon oath" (Boswell's 
Johnson, ii. , 407). 

The epitaph, as inscribed, contains two errors — one of the two of great im- 
portance. For " multa gravitati comitas," etc. , read " Multas gravitati comitas," 
etc., and for "in monumentis," "in momentis". The last line, moreover, as 
written by Parr, was " H. Tab. D, S. S. P. C." (Parr's Works, iv., 574).] 



APPENDIX 

1. GENTILITY AND TRADE (p. 9). 

Gibbon, in The Decline, vi., 259, under date of a.d. 1099, says of Peter the 
Hermit : "He was born of a gentleman's family (for we must now adopt a 
modern idiom) ". 

"Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger brother of a great family, 
who had rather see their children starve like gentlemen than thrive in a 
trade or profession that is beneath their quality. This humour fills several 
parts of Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happiness of a trading 
nation like ours that the younger sons, though incapable of any liberal art or 
profession, may be placed in such a way of life as may perhaps enable them 
to vie with the best of their family ; accordingly, we find several citizens that 
were launched into the world with narrow fortunes rising, by an honest 
industry, to greater estates than those of their elder brothers " (Addison, 
The Spectator, No. 108). 

Voltaire wrote from England in 1731 : "Le cadet d'un pair du royaume ne 
d^daigne point le n^goce. My lord Townshend, ministre d 6tat, a un frfere qui 
ae contente d'etre marchand dans la Cit6. Dans le temps que mylord Oxford 
gouvernait I'Angleterre, son cadet 6tait facteur h. Alep. . . . Cette 
coutume, qui pourtant commence trop k se passer, paralt monstrueuse ^ des 
AUemands entSt^s de leurs quartiers ; ils ne sauraient concevoir que le fils 
d'un pair d'Angleterre ne soit qu'un riche et puissant bourgeois, au lieu qu'en 
AUemagne tout est prince" (ffiwwrej de Voltaire, ed. 1819, xxiv., 44). For 
Nathanael Harley, of Aleppo, see CoUins's Peerage, ed. 1756, iii., 303. 
Thomas Harley, Lord Mayor of London in 1768, was the son of the third Earl 
of Oxford. 

"An English merchant," said Johnson, "is a new species of gentleman" 
(Boswell's Johnson, i., 491, n.). Boswell himself, after stating the claims made 
for this "new system of gentility," continues: "Such are the specious, but 
false arguments for a proposition which always will find numerous advocates, 
in a nation where men are every day starting up from obscurity to wealth. 
To refute them is needless. The general sense of mankind cries out, with 
irresistible force, ' Un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme '." 

Blackstone {Commenta7ies, ed. 1775, ii., 215) includes among "the incon- 
veniences that attend the splitting of estates, the inducing younger sons to 
take up with the business and idleness of a country life, instead of being 
serviceable to themselves and the public by engaging in mercantile, in mili- 
tary, in civil, or in ecclesiastical employments ". 

"The merchant is the friend of mankind" {The Decline, v., 324). 

2. WILLIAM LAW (p. 21). 

(a) Law a Nonjuror. 

Law as Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, "being called upon, 
soon after the accession of George I., to take the oaths prescribed by Act of 

18 (273) 



274 APPENDIX 

Parliament, and to sign the Declaration, refused to do so ; in consequence of 
which he vacated his fellowship " (Law's Serious Call, ed. 1814 ; preface, 
p. 1). Thomas Hearne, in like manner, was deprived of his post as Second 
Keeper of the Bodleian (Hearne's Remains, iii., 192). The oaths were those 
of supremacy by which "the Pope's pretended authority" was renounced, 
and of abjuration by which any claim of the Pretender was renounced. It 
had to be taken "by all persons in any oflBce, trust, or employment" 
(Blackstone's Commentaries, ed. 1775, i., 368). 

Johnson, in his Life of Fenton, describes that poet's "refusing to qualify 
himself for public employment by the oaths required" as " perverseness of 
integrity". See also Boswell's Johnson, ii., 321, for his ill opinion of the 
nonjurors ; and Hearne's Remarks and Collections, ed. C. B. Doble, Preface, 
p. 6, for Professor Mayor's defence of them. 

Swift advised a Jacobite friend to comply with the law. ' ' For my own 
part," he wrote, "I do not see any law of God or man forbidding us to give 
security to the powers that be ; and private men are not to trouble them- 
selves about titles to Crowns, whatever may be their particular opinions. 
The abjuration is understood as the law stands ; and, as the law stands, none 
has title to the Crown but the present possessor" (Swift's Letters to Chet- 
•mode, p. 87). 

{b) Law's Attacks on the Stage. 

It was in The Absolute Unlawfulness of Stage Entertainments fully 
Demonstrated that Law attacked the Stage. Gibbon refers to the following 
passages (pp. 14, 18, 42) : " The Play-House is as certainly the House of the 
Devil as the Church is the House of God. ... It belongs to the Devil, 
and is the Place of his Honour. . . . The Place of the Devil's Abode, 
where he holds his filthy Court of evil Spirits. . . . An Entertainment, 
where he was at the Head of it ; where the whole of it was in order to his 
Glory. ... A Place that as certainly belongs to the Devil as the heathen 
Temples of old, where wanton Hymns were sung to Venus, and drunken 
Songs to the God of Wine. . . . You must consider that all the Laughter 
there is not only vain and foolish, but that it is a Laughter amongst Devils, 
that you are upon profane Ground, and hearing Musick in the very Porch of 
Hell. " Law went on to maintain that ' ' the Stage never has one innocent 
play".. 

For John Dennis's argument in defence of the Stage see Overton's Law, 
p. 38. 

(<:) Law and the Bangoeian Controversy. 

In 1709 "one Hoadley, a pious and judicious divine," in a sermon before 
the Lord Mayor, maintained ' ' that it was not only lawful, but a duty incum- 
bent on all men, to resist bad and cruel governors " (Burnet's Hist, of His 
Own Time, iv., 229). When the House of Commons impeached Sacheverell, 
an address was voted to the Queen, "that she would be graciously pleased to 
bestow some dignity in the Church on Mr. Hoadly, for his eminent services 
both to the Church and State ". She answered "that she would take a proper 
opportunity to comply with their desires ; which, however, she never did " 
{Pari. Hist., vi., 808). Soon after the accession of George I. he was rewarded 
with the Bishopric of Bangor, worth, according to Whiston, £800 a year. He 
held it "for six entire years," Whiston adds, "without ever seeing that 
diocese in his life ; to the great scandal of religion " (Life of W. Whiston, 
ed. 1749, p. 244). In 1717 a sermon and another publication of his were con- 
demned by a Committee of Convocation. The Government stopped further 
proceedings by a prorogation. From that date till 1861 Convocation was 
never allowed to meet as a deliberative body {Johnsonian Miscellanies, ii., 
369, n., and Boswell's Johnson, i., 464). 



APPENDIX 275 

Hoadley was promoted from Bangor, through Hereford and Salisbury, to 
Winchester, while his brother was made Archbishop of Armagh. "He was 
preached and wrote against all over the kingdom," said the Nonjuror Hearne, 
' ' occasioned chiefly by a penny sermon of his, which, had they let it alone, 
would have died in a fortnight's time ; to such little beginnings do some men 
owe their rise" (Hearne's Remains, iii., 157). 

"In 1717 Law wrote his Three Letters to the Bishop of Batigor. . . . 
Dean Hook said 'they have never been answered, and may indeed be 
regarded as unanswerable' {Ghuixh Dictionaiy : Art. Bangorian Contro- 
versy) " (Overton's Law, p. 19). 

In June, 1735, Hoadley published anonymously A Plain Account of the 
Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord/'s Stipper {Gejit. Mag., 1735, 
p. 335). In Auto., p. 25, Gibbon has the foUo'oing note on this work : "By 
the pen of an angel, says Adams (I.A.L., i. c. 17) — I think out of character ". 
The reference is to Fielding's Joseph Andrews, liber 1, caput 17. Parson 
Adams says : "If you mean by the clergy some few designing factious men, 
who have it at heart to establish some favourite schemes at the price of the 
liberty of mankind, and the very essence of religion, it is not in the power of 
such persons to decry any book they please ; witness that excellent book 
called A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament ; a book 
written (if I may venture on the expression) with the pen of an angel ". 

Law's answer, A Demonstration of the Gross and Fundamental Errors, &c., 
was published in April, 1737 {Ge?it. Alag., 1737, p. 257). 

{d) Law and "The Fable of the Bees". 

Law's answer was entitled : Remarks upori\p. Late Book entitled the Fable 
of the Bees, &c., 1724, 80. F. D. Maurice edited it in 1844, at the request of 
John Sterling, who wrote to him: "The first section is one of the most 
remarkable philosophical essays I have ever seen in English. You probably 
know Law as perhaps the most perfect of controversial writers, whether right 
or wrong in his argument " (Preface, p. 1). 

"Everything, according to Mandeville," wrote Adam Smith, "is luxury 
which exceeds what is absolutely necessary for the support of human nature, 
so that there is vice even in the use of a clean shirt, or of a convenient 
habitation. . . . Though his system, perhaps, never gave occasion to 
more vice than what would have been without it, at least it taught that vice 
which arose from other causes to appear with more effrontery, and to avow 
the corruption of its motives with a profligate audaciousness which had never 
been heard of before" {Theory of Moral Sentiments, ii., 270, 274). 

Fielding makes Miss Matthews, a woman of loose character, praise "that 
charming fellow, Mandeville" {Amelia, Bk. iii., ch. 5). 

Gibbon himself shows the influence of Mandeville when he maintains that 
"luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only 
means that can correct the unequal distribution of property " ( The Decline, 
i., 53). See also Boswell's Johnson, iii., 292. 

(e) Law's "Serious Call". 

Johnson, who read the Serious Call at College, said : "I found Law quite 
an overmatch forme" (Boswell's Johnson, L, 68). "The Serious Call, he 
said, "was the finest piece of hortatory theology in any language" {ib., ii., 
122). "William Law, Sir," he said, "wrote the best piece of Paranetick 
Divinity, but William Law was no reasoner " {ib., iv., 287, n.). Mrs. Thrale, 
in one of her "studied epistles" {ib., iii., 421), wrote to Johnson : " You used 
to say you would not trust me with that author upstairs on the dressing-room 
shelf, yet I now half wish I had never followed any precepts but his" 
(Piosei Letters, ii., 214). 



276 APPENDIX 

Hannah More (Memoirs, ii., 435) recommended the Serious Call to the 
Earl of Orford (Horace Walpole) and some ladies as "a book that their 
favourite Mr. Gibbon had highly praised. They have promised to read it ; 
and I know they will be less afraid of Gibbon's recommendation than of 
mine ". 

The chapters in which Gibbon said that his two aunts are described are 
the seventh and eighth. They have the following titles : ' ' How the impru- 
dent tise of an estate corrzipts all the tempers of the mind, and fills the heart 
with poor and ridiculous passions, through the whole course of life ; represented 
in the character of Flavia." ^^ How the wise and pious tcse of an estate naturally 
carrieih us to great perfection in all the virtues of the Christian life ; repre- 
sented in the character of Alirauda." The Serious Call was published in 1729, 
seven years before Mr. Gibbon's death, when Hester Gibbon was twenty -five 
years old. Nevertheless, Flavia and Miranda are described as having had the 
management of their estates for twenty years ; so that if Gibbon's aunts 
resembled them, it must have been by imitation on their part, and not on 
the part of the author. 

3. GIBBON'S KINSMEN THE ACTONS (p. 24). 

Edward Acton, who was the great-grandson of the second baronet, Sir 
Walter Acton, by his second son Walter, attended at Besanfon Gibbon's 
father, who was the great-grandson of the same baronet by his third son 
Richard. Edward Acton's eldest son, John, "a naval officer in the service 
of Leopold of Tuscany, was sent for to organise the Neapolitan army and 
navy. He was made general, then captain-general of the kingdom, and, 
lastly, premier, or rather sole-minister (for the other ministers were merely 
his creatures), and in this ofiice he remained many years. His administration 
was neither so economical nor so wise as that of Tanucci, his predecessor. 
. . . Yet a considerable degree of liberty of speech, and even of the press, 
prevailed, and the country was prosperous and the people contented until 
the French Revolution, of which Naples felt the shock" {Penny Cyclo., x., 
230). He died in 1811. 

Lord Holland, who visited Naples in January, 1794, saysj that "the 
suspicious policy of the court, under the guidance of the Queen and General 
Acton, hacl peopled the prisons with those of their subjects most eminent for 
birth, manners, or acquirements " {Memoirs of the Whig Party, ed. 1852, 
i., 55). 

In 1791 General Acton succeeded to the family title as sixth baronet. One 
of his sons, who was born nine years after the historian's death, became a 
Cardinal. The present Lord Acton is the General's grandson. 

The General's uncle at Leghorn was Richard Acton. Gibbon, who visited 
him at Pisa, recorded on 24th September, 1764: "Je plains beaucoup ce 
pauvre vieillard. A I'&ge de soixante ans, il se trouve abandonn6 de tons les 
Anglais, pour avoir chang6 de religion ; accabl6 d'inflrmit6, sans esp6rance de 
revoir son pays, il se fixe parmi un peuple dont il n'a jamais pu ai^prendre la 
langue" {Misc. Works, i., 195). See also Corres., i., 37. 

4. THE BOROUGH OF PETERSFIELD (p. 25). 

" Edward Gibbon, father [grandfather] of the Gibbon, bought Petersfield 
in 1719. In 1739 it passed by purchase to the JoUifEe family " (Woodward's 
Hist, of Hampshire, iii., 320). If the date, 1739, is correct, it was not, as 
Gibbon says, his grandfather (he died in 1736) who " alienated such important 
property," but his father. Whoever it was, it was not Petersfield that he 
possessed, but "a weighty share" in it. The grandfather never represented 



APPENDIX 277 

the borough. His son was once member, at the general election of 1735. As 
Sir W. JoUiffe was the other member (Pari. Hist, ix., 626), he most likely 
was the co-owner, till by purchase he acquired the entire interest. The 
Gibbons still retained "the estate and manor of Beriton, otherwise Buriton, 
near Petersfield" [ante, p. 116). 

The advantage of being the owner of a borough that was "a burgage 
tenure " is shown in The Probationary Odes, ed. 1799, p. 302, where it is said 
of "Warren Hastings's wife : — 

" Oh ! Pitt, with awe behold that precious throat, 
"Whose necklace teems with many a future vote ! 
Pregnant with Burgage gems each hand she rears." 

Pitt, in his Reform Bill of 1785, proposed to compensate the owners of 
thirty-six small boroughs, which were to be disfranchised, at the cost (it was 
said) of £1,000,000 (Pari. Hist., xxv., 442, 445). 

On 11th May, 1820, the freeholders of Petersfield petitioned the House of 
Commons against the return of Hylton JoUiffe and Baron Hotham. The 
Mayor, they said, the Bev. J. AYhicher, who acted as Returning Officer, "had 
been elected at a Court Leet nominated by the Steward of the Court Leet, of 
which JoUiffe claims to be the Lord, whereas he ought to be elected at such 
Court Leet by a jury selected by the Bailiff of the Borough ". 

In a later petition, presented on 16th November, 1830, the same complaints 
were made. The Steward, it was added, was the solicitor of the Lord of the 
Manor. Freeholders had their votes rejected because "they were not in 
possession of their title deeds, although they had for several years been in 
possession of the property for which they claimed to vote, and as evidence of 
their title had tendered attested copies of the deeds which Hylton JoUiffe and 
his solicitor refused to produce, though they admitted that they were in his 
possession as the owner of the largest portion of the property held under the 
same title". The petitioners added that "the votes of man}^ persons were 
received who were not the bo?iafide owners of freehold tenements, but merely 
possessed of estates fraudulently and coUusively conveyed to them by 
JoUiffe, in order to qualify them to vote". 

The petitioners of 1820 had maintained that " the right of voting is in the 
Burgesses (being the inhabitants, householders paying scot and lot), and in 
the freeholders of lands in general, and in freeholders of ancient dwelling- 
houses or shambles, or dwelling-houses or shambles built upon ancient 
foundations, within the Borough, not restricted to houses or shambles of 
burgage tenure ". The Select Committee of the House of Commons reported 
that ' ' the right of election is in the freeholders of lands or ancient dwelling- 
houses or shambles, or dwelling-houses or shambles built upon ancient 
foundations within the Borough, such lands and dwelling-houses being entire 
ancient tenements ". 

A second committee sitting the following year made a report on 30th May 
in the same words, with the exception that the last two lines ran " such lands, 
dwelling houses, and shambles not being restricted to entire ancient tene- 
ments ". All three committees rejected the petitions, leaving the Lord of the 
Manor full power to elect whom he pleased. 

Blackstone says [Commentaries, ed. 1775, ii., 82): ""Where the right of 
election is by burgage tenure, that alone is a proof of the antiquity of the 
borough. Tenure in burgage therefore, or burgage tenure, is where houses or 
lands which were formerly the site of houses, in an ancient borough, are held 
of some lord in common socage, by a certain established rent. " 

5. PHLEDRUS (p. 36). 

Pattison, describing Casaubon's reception in Paris "by the best set in the 
capital," continues : " This circle of men, a society such as even Paris has not 



278 APPENDIX 

been able to produce again, consisted chiefly of members of the bar, or 
magistrature. Their centre of resort was the house of J. A. de Thou 
[Thuanus, ante, p. 6], the historian, president of the court of parlement. 
Their presiding genius had been Pierre Pithou, who was just lost to them by 
death, 1596 " {Isaac Casaubon, ed. 1892, p. 115). 

Pithou had been a Protestant. "Having escaped almost miraculously 
from the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, he secured his future safety 
by turning Papist" (Monk's Life of Bentley, ii., 236). 

Monk [ib., ii., 230) says of Bentley's edition of Phcedrus : "Never did he 
more expose himself to the attacks of enemies than when, at the suggestion 
of pique and resentment, he launched this puny and meagre performance into 
the troubled waters of criticism. ... It terminated his friendship with his 
old correspondent Burman. This indefatigable scholar had already printed 
three editions of the Fabulist. He was filled with amazement at the 
numerous and daring changes of the text." In a fourth edition by reprinting 
the Epistola Critica, in which Hare had reviewed Bentley's notes, he gave 
great offence [ib., p. 235). 

"Burman," wrote Gibbon, "was a mere critic, without being (in my 
opinion) a good one, since a good critic mixst reason well ; and Burman never 
could reason at all " {Misc. Works, v., 224). Johnson published a brief life of 
him in The Gent. Mag. for 1742, p. 206 ; reprinted in Johnson's Works, vi., 
396. See also ante, p. 59. 



6. FAIRY TALE ENGRAVED IN GIBBON'S MEMORY (p. 38). 

The tale is in Hypolitus, Earl of Douglas (London, 1708), a translation of 
Hypolite, Comte de Duglas, by M. C. La Mothe, Countess d'Aulnoy (Lyon, 
1699). " The faithful Hypolitus " in pursuit of " the most admirable Julia" 
arrived at an Abbey, where the Abbess asked him to tell a story. He told 
how the Russian King, Adolph, losing his way in hunting, arrived at the 
Cave of the Winds. Zephyrus bore him away to the Isle of Felicity, where 
he was entertained by the Princess. One day she asked him how long he 
thought he had been there. "I think it cannot be much less than three 
months," he replied. She burst out laughing. "Dear Adolph," said she with 
a very serious air, "you must know it is no less than three hundred years." 
He was struck with shame at having done no glorious action in all that time, 
and insisted on leaving her to render himself more worthy of her favours. 
She gave him a horse which would bear him safely home so long as he did not 
touch the ground before he reached his own country. In the way lay a cart 
overthrown, laden with wings of divers shapes and sizes, and by it the carter, 
a very old man, who called for help. The King alighted, when up sprang the 
old man, calling out : "At last I have met you. My name is Time. I have 
been in search of you these three ages. I have worn out all these wings to 
find you out." At these words he stifled the King. Zephyrus carried his 
dead body back to the Palace of Felicity. "Since that fatal day nobody has 
got sight of the Princess " (pp. 176-196). 



7. GIBBON AT WESTMINSTER SCHOOL (p. 39). 

Gibbon was not clear as to the earlier dates in his life. The death of his 
mother he placed both in 1746 and 1747 {Auto., pp. 45, 221, 295). His 
grandfather Porten's bankruptcy he placed in the spring of 1747 and 1748 
{ib., pp. 48, 119, 223). In one account it was in February, 1751, that he 
became Francis's pupil, and in another account in Januar}!-, 1752 {ib., pp. 55, 
116). Of his time at Westminster School he gives three different accounts. 
According to the text he entered in January, 1749 ; the date of his departure 



APPENDIX 279 

he does not give. In a second memoir he says he passed "two years and a 
half at the school— from January, 1748, to August, 1750" {Auto., p. 115). In 
a third account he says : "I continued near two years (from Christmas, 1748, 
to August, 1750) " (ib., p. 221). He consulted Dr. Vincent, headmaster, in 
1793, who replied : " From Dr. Nichol's book, which is in my possession, you 
were entered in January, 1748. It was the same year I was entered myself in 
the September following. Your age is noticed, as is that of all the others in 
Dr. N. s book, which makes you nine years old in 1748. . . . Dr. Vincent is 
sure of his own memory when he asserts that he remembers Mr. Gibbon at 
Mrs. Porten's house in 1748, as he lived next door" {Misc. Works, ii., 489). 
In January, 1748, Gibbon was ten. 

Mr. J. Sargeamit, the author of Annals of Westminster School, informs me 
that " Vincent was a very accurate man ". 

If the earlier dates are correct, it was not the twelfth but the eleventh year 
of Gibbon's age that was ' ' the most propitious to the growth of his intellectual 
stature " ; and it was not the loss of three but of four "precious years " that 
he had to lament {a?ite, p. 43). 

The headmaster's name Gibbon gives correctly in the text — John NicoU ; 
though elsewhere he writes it Nichols {Auto., pp. 116, 221), as did Cowper 
and Cumberland. Cowper, who at the age of eighteen left the school not long 
after Gibbon entered, says of NicoU's preparation of the boys for confirmation : 
" The old man acquitted himself of this duty like one who had a deep sense of 
its importance, and I believe most of us were struck by his manner, and 
affected by his exhortations" (Southey's Cowper, i., 13). 

According to Cumberland, the dramatist {Memoirs, i., 71-2), who left 
Westminster about three years earlier than Cowper, NicoU "had the art of 
making his scholars gentlemen ". Cumberland tells how he and some of his 
schoolfellows one day, escaping from the Abbey service, went and disturbed 
a meeting of Quakers. They were reported by a monitor. " When my turn 
came to be called up to the Master, I presume he saw my contrition, when, 
turning a mild look upon me, he said aloud, ' Erubuit, salva est res ' * ; and 
sent me back to my seat ". 

Bentham, who entered Westminster about five years after Gibbon, says 
that a scheme was formed for erecting houses in Dean's Yard for people who 
wished to send their sons to the school. No tenant was found ' ' except one 
woman, who was an aunt of Gibbon. The scheme failed ; and when half a 
dozen houses were built no new funds were forthcoming, and they were either 
pulled dovm, or were left to decay" (Bentham's Works, x., 29). "The 
discipline of these houses was supposed to be under the control of one of the 
masters, who received a fee from the dame. It was sometimes little more 
than a name. Of the masters some at least were content to act only when 
the boys interfered with their personal comfort. Perhaps few were like 
Dodd, the actor's son, who allowed his father to come djrunk from Drury 
Lane and play his part again to an audience of striplings and infants " (Sar- 
geaunt's Atinals, etc., p. 159). 

Under Dr. NicoU's successor the school seems to have suffered. According 
to Bentham " it was a wretched place for instruction. . . . He often spoke of 
the tyranny and cruelty of the fagging system. ' It was,' he said, 'a horrid 
despotism. . . . Our great glory was Dr. Markham [the headmaster, after- 
wards Archbishop of York] . He had a large quantity of classical knowledge. 
His business was rather in courting the great than in attending to the school. 
Any excuse served his purpose for deserting his post ' " (Bentham's Works, x., 
30, 34). 

In 1779 six of the boys were tried at the Quarter Sessions for wounding a 
man in Dean's Yard. One of them, with a drawn knife in his hand, said, " If 
you don't kneel down and ask pardon, I will rip you up," which the man was 

* "He blushes ; all is well" (Terence, Adelphi, iv., 5. 9). 



280 APPENDIX 

compelled to do to save his life. Four of them were sentenced to a month's 
imprisonment and £100 fine to be paid among them ; but if they would in 
court ask the prosecutor's pardon on their knees, as they had compelled him 
to ask theirs, the court would take off the imprisonment. They absolutely 
refused asking pardon on their knees. The sentence stood thus for about an 
hour, when the father of one of the four told the court that his son was 
elected to Christ College, Oxford, and must go there in a few days or lose 
his election. On this the court took oflE his imprisonment. This being done 
some of the magistrates moved that the rest might have their imprisonment 
taken ofE also. On a division it was carried by nine to seven. Thej^ were 
then directed to make the prosecutor satisfaction. Their friends paid him 
£50, and his attorney £20 for the costs {Annual Register, 1779, i., 213). 

Southey, who entered "Westminster in 1788, speaking of the advantages 
which a day -scholar in every school has over a boarder, says : " He suffers 
nothing from tyranny, which is carried to excess in schools. . . . Above all, 
his religious habits, which it is almost impossible to retain at school, are safe. 
I would gladly send a son to a good school by day ; but rather than board 
him at the best, I would, at whatever inconvenience, educate him myself " 
(Southey's Life and Corres., i., 80). 



8. AUTHORS READ BY GIBBON IN HIS BOYHOOD (p. 44). 
{a) Thomas Hbabne. 

Ductal' Historicus ; or a Short System of Utiiversal History, &c. By Thomas 
Hearne. Oxford, 1704. 8vo. 2 vols. 

Gibbon, in his Address on our Latin Memorials of the Middle Ages {Misc. 
Works, iii., 566), says: "The last who has dug deep into the mine was 
Thomas Hearne, a clerk of Oxford, poor in fortune, and, indeed, poor in 
imderstanding. His minute and obscure diligence, his voracious and undis- 
tinguishing appetite, and the coarse vulgarity of his taste and style, have 
exposed him to the ridicule of idle wits. Yet it cannot be denied that 
Thomas Hearne has gathered many gleanings of the harvest ; but if his own 
prefaces are filled with crude and extraneous matter, his editions will be 
always recommended by their accuracy and use." 

Pope addresses him in The Dunciad (iii., 189) : — 

' ' To future ages may thy dulness last, 
As thou preserv'st the dulness of the past." 

Gray's friend, Richard "West, wrote The Reply of Time to Tom Hearne : — 

"Ho ! ho ! cried Time to Thomas Hearne, 
"Whatever I forget, you learn." 

("Walpole's Letters, i., 1.) 

{b) Littlbbury's "Herodotus". 

The Egyptian and Grecian History of Herodotus. Translated from the 
Greek by Isaac Littlebury. 2 vols. 8vo. 1709. — In spite of its lameness it 
reached a third edition in 1737 {Ge?tt. Mag., 1737, p. 578). 

(i;) Spelman's "Xenophon". 

The Expedition of Cyrus into Persia. Translated, with notes, by Edward 
Spelman, Esq. London, 1742. 2 vols. 8vo. — Gibbon described it as "one 
of the most accurate and elegant prose translations that any language has 
produced " {Misc. Works, v., 587). 



APPENDIX 281 

(d) Gordon's "Tacitus". 

The Works of Tacitus. By Thomas Gordon. London, 1728-31. Folio. 
2 vols. — The second edition, in 4 vols. 8vo, is advertised in The Gent. Mag., 
1737, p. 320. Mr. Arthur Galton reprinted in 1890 portions of Gordon's 
translation, to which he prefixed an interesting introduction (London : 
Walter Scott). 

{e) Peocopius. 

The History of the Warres of the Emperor Justinian. Written in Greek by 
Procopius, and Englished by H. Holcroft, Knight. London, 1653. — For 
Gibbon's estimate of Procopius see The Decline, iv., 210. Macaulay, in the 
opening of his History of £ngla?id, after recounting a ghostly story of one 
province of our island, continues : ' ' Such were the marvels which an able 
historian [Procopius] . . . gravely related in the rich and polite Constanti- 
nople, touching the country in which the founder of Constantinople had 
assumed the imperial purple ". 

(f) John Speed. 

Speed published in 1611 The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine and 
The History of Great Britaine under the Conquests of ye Romaiis, Saxons, 
Danes and Normans. 

{g) Rapin. 

Voltaire, speaking of works of great merit, wrote in 1752: "La nation 
franpaise est de toutes les nations celle qui a produit le plus de ces ouvrages. 
Sa langue est devenue la langue de I'Burope : tout y a contribu^ ... les 
pasteurs calvinistes refugies, qui ont porte 1' eloquence, la m^thode dans les 
pays Strangers ; . . . un Rapin de Thoyras, qui a donne en franpais la seule 
bonne histoire d'Arigleterre ' {(Euvres de Voltaire, xviii., 265). 

In The Gent. Mag., 1731, p. 90, is advertised: " The History of England, 
&c., by M. De Rapin Thoyras {sic\ Done into English by N. Tindal, M.A. 
Vol. XIV." — There were fifteen volumes in all. Tindal dedicated it to the 
Prince of Wales, ' ' who was so pleased that he gave him a gold medal worth 
forty guineas" {Gent. Mag., 1733, p. 357). 

(A) Mezebay. 

M6zeray's Histoire de France was translated by John Bulteel in 1683. 
To M^zeraj' Sainte-Beuve gives two of his Causeries du Lundi, viii., 194- 
233. 

Prior wrote some lines in a copy of the History, beginning : — 

' ' Whate'er thy couutrj^men have done 
By law and wit, by sword and gun. 
In thee is faithfully recited." 

(Prior's Poetical Works, ed. 1858, p. 102.) See Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, x., 
81, for Scott's recitation of them. 

(?) Davila. 

Davila's Historia delle Guerre civili di Prancia was translated by Cotterell 
and Aylesbury in 1647-48. — "Davila, it is said, was one of John Hampden's 
favourite writers" (Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1874, i., 442). 

(/) Machiavbl. 

The translation of Machiavel began as early as 1562 (Lowndes's Bibl. 
Ma?i., p. 1438). 



282 APPENDIX 

(i) Fra Paolo Sabpi. 

Gibbon, writing of Fra Paolo Sarpi, says: "Whoever will give himself 
the trouble, or rather the pleasure, of perusing that incomparable historian," 
&c. {Afisc. Works, iv., 551). Johnson began to translate his History of the 
Council of Trent (Boswell's Johnson, i., 135). "He is my favourite modern 
historian," wrote Macaulay (Life, ed. 1877, ii., 285). 

(/) Archibald Bower. 

Bower's ^wiforjo/^^^ Po/fij was published in 1748-66. 4to. 7 vols. Price, 
£4 4s. — Gibbon wrote of him in 1764 : ' ' He is a rogue unmasked, who 
enjoyed for twenty years the favour of the public, because he had quitted a 
sect [the Jesuits] to which he still secretly adhered, and because he had been 
a counsellor of the inquisition in the town of Macerata, where an inquisition 
never existed" {Misc. Works, v., 464). He was one of the writers of the 
Universal History {3 ohnsov^s, Letters, ii., 433). Goldsmith introduces him in 
Retaliatioti among the "quacking divines". See also Horace Walpole's 
Letters, ii., 209, 508. 

(m) Lawrence Eachard. 

Of Eachard's Roman History, 5 vols., 8vo, London, 1707, "Vols. 1, 2 
only are professedly written by Eachard ; the subsequent vols, purport to 
be continuations by another hand" (Brit. AIus. Cat.). The continuation 
was carried down to the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. "He stole 
his Roman History from Dr. Howell's History, without so much as making 
acknowledgment" (Hearne's Collections, i., 297). 

(n) "William Howell. 

Howell's History of tlie World was published in 1680-85. 

(o) Rev. Simon Ockley. 

Hearne wrote of Ockley in 1706 : " Being naturally inclin'd to ye study of 
ye Oriental Tongues, he was, when abt 17 years of Age, made Hebrew 
Lecturer in ye said College [Queen's College, Cambridg«], chiefly because he 
was poor, and covdd hardly subsist. In ye Arabick Language he is said by 
some Judges to be ye best skill'd of any Man in England " (Hearne's Collec- 
tions, i., 245). 

Gibbon, mentioning his History of the Saracens, continues : " Besides our 
printed authors, he draws his materials from the Arabic MSS. of Oxford, 
which he would have more deeply searched, had he been confined to the 
Bodleian Library instead of the City Jail ; a fate how unworthy of the man 
and of his country " { The Decline, vi., 4). He died in 1720. 

(/) Abulpharagius. 

" Consult, peruse, and study the Specimen Historice Arabum of Pocock ! 
(Oxon., 1650, in 4to.) The thirty pages of text and version are extracted 
from the Dynasties of Gregory Abulpharagius, which Pocock afterwards 
translated" {The Decline, v., 314). See also ib., v., 155, for Gibbon's praise 
of Abulpharagius as "a poet, physician and historian, a subtle philosopher 
and a moderate divine ". 

{q) Cbllabius. 

Notitia Orbis Antiqui, sive Geographia Plenior. By Christopher Cellarius. 
1703-6. 2 vols. — Gibbon, after reading Emmius's Geographical Description 
of Greece, wrote : "It contributed a good deal to confirm me in the contempt- 
ible idea I always entertained of Cellarius " {Misc. Works, v., 286). 



APPENDIX 283 

{r) Dk. Edwakd Wells. 

An Historical Geography of the Old atid New Testament. By Edward 
"Wells, D.D. 1708-11. 

{s) Stbauchius. 

Strauchius (^gidius Strauch) published in 1697 Dissertatio historico- 
chrottologica de epocha muitdi conditi. 

(t) Heivicus. 

Christophorus Helvicus published in 1609 Theatrum Historicum, sive 
ChronologicE systema novum, &c. 

[u) James Anderson. 

James Anderson's Royal Genealogies ; or the Genealogical Tables of Emperors, 
Kings and Princes from Adam to these Times was published in 1732. 

{v) Archbishop Usher. 

Annates Veteris et Novi Testamenti, 1650-54. Usher published also an 
English version. "Usher," said Johnson, "was the great luminary of the 
Irish Church ; and a greater, he added, no Church could boast of ; at least 
in modern times" (Boswell's Johnson, ii., 132). 

(w) Dr. Humphrey Pbideaux. 

Tlie Old and New Testament Connected, &c. By Humphrey Prideaux, 
D.D. London, 1716-18. Fol. 2 vols. — Hearne wrote of him that Dean 
Aldrich " used to speak slightingly of him, as an unaccurate muddy -headed 
man " (Hearne's Remains, iii., 157). See ante, p. 223. 

(a") J. J. SCALIGER. 

J. J. Scaliger published his De Emendaiione Temporum in 1583, and his 
Thesaurus Temporum in 1606. 

{y) Petavius. 

" Denis P^tau, n6 a Orleans, en 1583, j^suite. II a r6form^ la chrono- 
logic " (ffi^z^rw de Voltaire, xvii., 141). "II se trouve, selon le fr^re P^tau, 
j^suite, que la famille de No6 avait produit un bi-milliard deux cent 
quarante-sept milliards deux cent vingt-quatre millions sept cent dix-sept 
habitants en trois cent ans. Le bon prStre Petau ne savait pas ce que c'est que 
de fairs des enfans et de les Clever. Comme il y va ! " {lb., xvi., 400.) 

9. GIBBON AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE (p. 49). 

Gibbon, as the College Books show, was the only Gentleman-Commoner 
who entered in 1752. In 1750, four entered; in 1751, one, and in 1752, 
before he left, two. In the next two years and a half sixteen entered. 
The late Rev. J. R. Bloxam, D.D., formerly Fellow of the College, who 
graduated in 1832, wrote to me on Jan. 22, 1889 : "There was no tradition in 
my time of the set of rooms which Gibbon occupied. President Routh told 
Milman that story of Finden, the Fellow which he gives in a note {ante, 
p. 61, n.^ but he also told him that Gibbon had a great head, always wore 
black, and came late into Hall. He was admitted as a member of the College 
on April 2, 1752, and matriculated in the Easter Vacation. His name dis- 
appears from the Buttery Book on July 4, 1753 ; but his name was not taken 



284 APPENDIX 

off the College Books regularly till 1755, when he received back his caution 
money (£40). Before that time he had joined the Church of Rome, and had 
left it, of which proceeding the College was probably entirely ignorant. 
After he had published his Autobiography [this is a mistake, as it was pub- 
lished after his death], one of the Magdalen Fellows met him in Oxford, and 
asked him to dine at Magdalen, saying, ' If you come, we will not burn you '. 
He replied that he would have done so, but that he had an engagement in 
London at a certain time, and must proceed on his journey thither. There is a 
book in the Eton College Library, Bishop Hall's Satires, with his name written 
in it in a boyish hand, ' Edward Gibbon, Gentleman Commoner of Magdalen 
College, Oxford, May 10, 1753 '. "\¥hen, as Librarian of Magdalen College, I 
read his taunt that the College had no writers, I commenced a Library of 
Magdalen authors, and, in addition to many works of authors like Addison, 
collected about three hundred volumes, for which collection I have still some 
to be added. His second tutor, whose name he suppresses, was Dr. Thomas 
Winchester, of whom I have given an account in my Register of Demies, 
whom old President Routh recollected." 

Dr. Routh was elected President of Magdalen in 1791. He died in Decem- 
ber, 1854, aged ninety -nine. Gibbon passed a night in Oxford in Oct., 1793 
{ante, p. 251, n. 1). 

" One unparalleled beauty belonging to this College is the extensive out- 
let. The Grove seems perfectly adapted to indulge contemplation ; being a 
pleasant kind of solitude, laid out in walks, and well planted with elms. It 
has likewise a bowling-green in it, and having some beautiful lawns, feeds 
about forty head of deer. Beside these walks, there is a very delightful one 
round a meadow, surrounded by the branches of the Cherwell ; whence it is 
called the Water-Walk" {A Pocket Companion for Oxford, ed. 1762, p. 31). 

Addison, it seems, had not yet given his name to the long straight walk on 
the northern side. 

It was as a Gentleman-Commoner that Gibbon received the key of the 
library. James wrote from Queen's College in his fourth year : "The honour 
of the key of the library was in consequence of my application to the Doctor. 
It has, however, many inconveniences ; whenever I want to go in, I am forced 
to get the butlei''s keys, there being two locks on the door to prevent a sub- 
scriber's entering without leave" [Letters of Radcliffe an ^ James, p. 165). 

The dreariness of a poor student's lot at Oxford is described in A n Epistle 
from Oxon to a Friend, published in the same volume as Johnson's Latin 
version of Pope's Messiah (Husband's Miscellany of Poems, 1731, p. 121). 
Husband was a Fellow of Pembroke College. The poet writes : — 

"But I, unhappy I, whom cloistered walls 
Incage, far distant from my native soil. 
The sport of wanton fortime, live deprived 
Of every common privilege of life. 
Nor converse me of entertaining friend. 
Nor merry tale, nor care-beguiling jest. 
Nor social catch, nor quavering laugh delight. 
My gloomy, melancholy, mournful days 
Pass joyless, doomed for ever to the din 
Of wrangling, barbarous, unmeaning terms, 
The pedant's learned jargon, and the plague 
Of dull, illogical, untutored youth. 



Thirst in my throat, and famine in my bowels, 

I to recess of naked room repair ; 

A garret vile, dark, dark and dismal all 

As night 

No warmth of wood 
My frozen limbs with crackling blaze revives," 



APPENDIX 285 



10. WARBURTON AND LOWTH (p. 49). 

Warburton, in an Appefidix Concerning the Book of Job, published in the 
fourth edition of The Divine Legation, vol. v., p. 409, attacking Lowth for 
maintaining that "idolatry was punished under the CEConomy of the 
Patriarchs, in the families and under the dominion of Abraham, Melchisedec, 
and Job," continues (p. 414): "But the learned Professor, who has been 
hardily brought up in the keen atmosphere of wholesome SEVERia?iES, and 
early taught to distinguish between de facto and de jure, thought it needless 
to enquire into Facts, when he was secure of the Right. And therefore only 
slightly and superciliously asks, 'What? was not Abraham, by his very 
■princely office to punish Idolatiy ? Were not Melchisedec and Job, and all the 
heads of Tribes to do the same ? ' Why, no ; and it is well for Religion that 
they were not. It is for its honour that such a set of persecuting Patriarchs 
is nowhere to be found but in Sk poetical Prelection.'" 

"To understand," writes Pattison, "the bitterness of this taimt, we must 
recur to Lowth's peculiar position before the world in 1765. The University 
of Oxford was committed by all the traditions of seventy years to the 
principles of High Church and Jacobitism. Convicted of scarcely disguised 
disaffection to the reigning dynasty, it had been treated by successive 
ministries with neglect and contempt. Lowth stood forward as the foremost 
man and representative of this disgraced and semi-outlaw society. To 
fasten upon him the stigma of being the champion of disloyalty and 
persecuting principles, the presumed atmosphere in which Lowth had been 
brought up, would have been a fatal bar to his prospects in the Church. 
Nothing, therefore, could be more malignant than Warburton's hints, while 
at the same time nothing could be more unjust ; for though the public and 
the Government were not yet aware of it, a great change had been working in 
the opinions and feelings of the University, The old High Church and High 
Tory party, of which Dr. King was the representative, had been slowly losing 
in numbers and influence, and a new generation forming in a mould less alien 
from the general feeling and opinion of England. To this party, which com- 
prehended the younger and better minds in the University, the doctrines of 
the old Tory, his Stuart attachments, and his passion for ' wholesome 
severities ' against Nonconformists, were already distasteful ; and it was of 
this party that Lowth was the representative. Stung at once by the unfair- 
ness of the taunt, and by its damning nature, Lowth threw all his force into 
his reply to it. He distinctly and emphatically repudiates, as he could with 
truth, the insinuation of intolerance and persecixting tenets. ' I have never 
omitted any opportunity that fairly offered itself of bearing my testimony 
against those very principles, and of expressing my abhorrence of them both 
in public and in private.' And then he turns upon the bishop: 'Pray, my 
lord, what is it to the purpose where I have been brought up ? . . . Had I 
not your lordship's example to justify me, I should think it a piece of 
extreme imj)ertinence to inquire where you were bred. It is commonly said 
your lordship's education was of that particular kind concerning which it is 
a remark of that great judge of men and manners. Lord Clarendon, that it 
particularly disposes them to be proud, insolent, and pragmatical. ' ' Colonel 
Harrison was the son of a butcher, and had been bred up in the place of a 
clerk, under a lawyer of good account in those parts ; which kind of educa- 
tion introduces men into the language and practice of business ; and if it be 
not resisted by the great ingenuity of the person, inclines young men to more 
pride than any other kind of breeding, and disposes them to be pragmatical 
and insolent." [History of the Rebellion, ed. 1826, vi., 219.] Now, my lord, 
as you have in your whole behaviour, and in all your writings, remarkably 
distinguished yourself by your humility, lenity, meekness, forbearance, 
candour, humanity, civility, decency, good manners, good temper, modera- 
tion with regard to the opinions of others, and a modest diffidence of your 



286 APPENDIX 

own, this unpromising circumstance of your education is so far from being a 
disgrace to you, that it highly redounds to your praise. For myself, on the 
contrary, it is well if I can acquit myself of the burden of being responsible 
for the great advantages which I enjoyed. For, my lord, I was educated in 
the University of Oxford,' &c. [Letter to Bishop Warburton, &c., ed. 1766, 
p. 64]" (Pattison's Works, ed. 1889, ii., 140). 



11. HOOKER, CHILLINGWORTH, AND LOCKE (p. 50). 

" I have often heard Mr. Locke say, in reference to his first years spent in 
the University, " said his friend Ladj"^ Masham, ' ' that he had so small satis- 
faction there from his studies, as finding very little light brought thereby to 
his understanding, that he became discontented with his manner of life, and 
wished his father had rather designed him for anything else than what he 
was destined to, apprehending that his no greater progress in knowledge 
proceeded from his not being fitted or capacitated to be a scholar" (Fox 
Bourne's Life of Locke, ed. 1876, i., 47). 

"The scholastic teaching of Oxford had a large share in forming, by 
reaction, many of his most characteristic opinions. . . . We can hardly doubt 
that, if Locke had been brought up in a university where logic and philosophy 
did not form part of the course, his greatest work would never have been 
written " (T. Fowler's Locke, ed. 1880, p. 6). 

At Christ Church he long enjoyed a studentship, corresponding to a 
fellowship at other colleges. In 1684 he was illegally deprived of it by the 
servile Dean, Bishop Fell, and the Chapter (King's Life of Locke, ed. 1858, 
pp. 147, 149, 175). King William neglected to restore him. 

By joining Hooker and Chillingworth with Locke, Gibbon seems to imply 
that they also were ill-used by the University. Hooker's obligations to 
Oxford are acknowledged by his biographer, who, speaking of his election to 
a scholarship at [Corpus, says : ' ' And now as he was much encouraged, so 
now he was perfectly incorporated into this beloved college, which was then 
noted for an eminent library, strict students, and remarkable scholars ". His 
Fellowship, which he gained four years later, he lost by his unhappy 
marriage. ' ' By this marriage the good man was drawn from the tranquillity 
of his college ; from that garden of piety, of pleasure, of peace, and a sweet 
conversation, into the thorny wilderness of a busy world (Walton's Lives, 
ed. 1838, pp. 175, 185). 

Chillingworth was first Scholar and next Fellow of Trinity College. 
Oxford does not seem to have been wanting to him. 



12. FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES (p. 53). 

Adam Smith attacked the Universities of Europe. In France, he says, 
they suffered from "an arbitrary and extraneous jurisdiction". A pro- 
fessor could gain protection from it, "not by ability or diligence in his 
profession, but by obsequiousness to the will of his superiors ". "It is 
observed by Mr. de Voltaire, that Father Porr6e, a Jesuit of no great 
eminence in the republic of letters, was the only professor they ever had in 
France whose works were worth the reading. ['Por6e {Charles) . . . du 
petit nombre de professeurs qui ont eu de la cfl6brit6 chez les gens du 
monde' {CEuvres de Voltaire, xvii., 142).] . . . The observation of Mr. de 
Voltaire may be applied, I believe, not only to France, but to all other 
Roman Catholic countries. We very rarely find in any of them an eminent 
man of letters who is a professor in an university, except, perhaps, in the 
professions of law and physic." 



APPENDIX 287 

Smith says of "the philosophical education" generally given: "The 
alterations which the universities of Europe thus introduced into the ancient 
course of philosophy were all meant for the education of ecclesiastics. . . . 
But the additional quantity of subtlety and sophistry, the casuistry and the 
ascetic morality which those alterations introduced into it, certainly did not 
render it more for the education of gentlemen, or men of the world, or more 
likely either to improve the understanding or to mend the heart. This 
course of philosophy is what still continues to be taught in the greater part of 
the universities of Europe" ( Wealth of Nations, ed. 1811, iii., 169, 182, 239). 

Gibbon, in The Decline, vi., 189, describing how at Salerno "a school, 
the first that arose in the darkness of Europe, was consecrated to the healing 
art," continues : "The school of medicine has long slept in the name of an 
imiversity ". 

Five years after Gibbon left Oxford, Blackstone said in his opening lecture 
on the study of the law : "A fashion has prevailed, especially of late, to 
transport the growing hopes of this island to foreign universities, in Switzer- 
land, Germany and Holland ; which, though infinitely inferior to our own in 
every other consideration, have been looked upon as better nurseries of the 
civil, or (which is nearly the same) of their own municipal law " (Blackstone's 
Commentaries, ed. 1775, i., 5). 



13. COLLEGE COMMON ROOMS AND MAGDALEN FELLOWS (p. 57). 

Robert Lloyd, the schoolfellow of Churchill, Cowper, and Warren 
Hastings, and also of Gibbon, though his senior by four j'ears, thus ridicules 
the Fellows of Oxford in The North Briton for 30th October, 1762 :— 

" Fellows ! who've soak'd away their knowledge 
In sleepy residence at College ; 
Whose lives are like a stagnant pool, 
Muddy and placid, dull and cool ; 
Mere drinking, eating ; eating, drinking ; 
With no impertinence of thiiiking." 

Thomas Warton, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, in The Progress of 
Disconte?it (1746) describes the feelings of a man who had resigned his fellow- 
ship for a College living : — 

" Why did I sell my College life 
(He cries) for benefice and wife ? 
Return, ye days, when endless pleasure 
I found in reading or in leisure ; 
When calm around the Common Room 
I puflf'd my daily pipe's perfume ; 
Rode for a stomach, and inspected, 
At annual bottlings, corks selected ; 
And din'd untax'd, untroubl'd, under 
The portrait of our pious Founder." 

(Warton's Poetical Works, ed. 1802, ii., 197.) 

In many of the Colleges the Common Room was open to the commoners 
as well as to the gentlemen-commoners. In 1776 Dr. Adams, Master of 
Pembroke College, writes Boswell, "told us that in some of the Colleges, the 
fellows had excluded the students from social intercourse with them in the 
common room. Johnson. ' They are in the right, Sir : there can be no real 
conversation, no fair exertion of mind amongst them, if the young men are 
by ; for a man who has a character does not choose to stake it in their 
presence' " (Boswell's Johnson, ii., 443). 



288 APPENDIX 

Among "the monks of Magdalen" was George Home, afterwards Bishop 
of Norwich. He was a man of exemplary character, who at this time was 
engaged on his Commentary on the Psalms. That only fifteen years later he 
was elected President seems to show that the majority of the junior Fellows 
of Gibbon's time were not so degraded as he paints them. G. V. Cox, 
writing of Oxford in 1794, says that ' ' Dr. Home's name was familiar to me 
in such phrases as, ' True as George Home, ' ' Sweet-tempered as George 
Home'" {Recollections of Oxford, ed. 1868, p. 153). "Parr said of him, 'he 
understood Greek and he loved Hebrew,' meaning, as is interpreted, that he 
did not understand Hebrew " (H. D. Best's Memorials, p. 62). 

Dr. Waldgrave, Gibbon's first tutor, sent to the College from his country 
living two manuscript volumes of annotations on Plato, with the inscription : 
"Dr. Waldgrave to Dr. Home and the College. All Health. January 1, 
1776. The oblivia vHcb after the death of a Friend, And that Friend, A 
Wife." At the end he recorded: "The Dialogues are the most illiterate, 
most inelegant and most insipid repast the mind of man can sit down to. To 
the Epistles I allow some merit in point of diction." In his epitaph in 
Washington Church, perhaps composed by himself, it is said that " he came 
mourning into the world three months after the death of his Father, took 
gently there what gently came, and left it April 26, 1784, thanking God for 
the past and hoping humbly through the great Redemption for his future 
mercies ". 

Another of the monks was Thomas West, D.D., who was once bursar of 
the College. ' ' It was suggested to him that he ought to get some cattle to 
eat down the grass of the meadow. He sent for a farmer who, agreeing to 
put in some stock, asked what he was to paj^ per head per week. ' Pay ? ' 
said the bursar. ' Do you think Magdalen College is to be under an obliga- 
tion to such an one as you ? ' " {lb., p. 295.) See ib. for his one vain attempt 
to visit London. 

H. D. Best, himself a Fellow of Magdalen, wrote of another Fellow : 
" Here he lived for five and thirty years ; ' he had nothing to do and he did 
it,' to quote a witticism of George Home" {ib., p. 136). See also Letters of 
Radcliffe and James, pp. 85, 191. 

The Rev. H. A. Wilson, in his Magdalen College, pp. 222, 244, 249, says 
that the greater part of the demies were graduates biding their time for a 
fellowship to fall vacant, to which they would succeed as a matter of course. 
" Their studies were without the stimulus of rivalry or the interest of com- 
panionship." The position of gentleman-commoner lasted for a hundred 
years after Gibbon left the College. There was a reforming party among the 
Fellows who wished to abolish them, but they could not overcome the opposi- 
tion of the aged President, Dr. Routh. "Their virtual abolition took place 
in 1854." 



14, DECLAMATIONS IN HALL (p. 59). 

By the statutes of Pembroke College "all non-graduate scholars and 
commoners are to declaim publicly in hall on Saturdays after common 
prayers". Under the Commonwealth "this rule was abrogated from April 
18, 1651, in order that all might prepare themselves for the Lord's Day" 
(Macleane's Pembroke College, pp. 189, 231). It was restored later on, for 
Johnson declaimed (BosweU's Johnson, i., 71, n. 2). James wrote from 
Queen's College in 1778: "Sanderson [the author of Logicae Artis Com- 
fendium] is the great oracle next to Ai-istotle, to whose bust the wranglers in 
the hall seem to pay a more profound reverence than to common sense " 
{Letters of Radcliffe and James, p. 50). The Provost of the College says in a 
note on this passage that "it probably refers to the disputations j^erformed 
as exercises by the students ". In Magdalen College the declamations were 



APPENDIX 289 

restored by Routh, who became President in 1791. James Hurdis, a demy 
of 1782, describing the College at the end of the eighteenth centiiry, says : 
" All yoimg men of three years' standing, whether gentlemen-commoners or 
dependent members, are still called upon in their turns to declaim before the 
whole College, immediately after dinner, while the society and their visitants 
are yet sitting at their respective tables. Neither is the gentleman-commoner 
exempted from any other exercise which the College requires of its dependent 
members " {A Word or Two in Vindication of the University of Oxford and 
of Magdale?i College in particular from the Posthumous Aspersions of Mr. 
Gibbon, p. 13). 

Francis Newbery, who entered Trinity College in 1762, describes how the 
under-graduates in turn, one every day, ' ' recited thirty or forty lines from 
one of the classics during the clatter of knives and forks and plates in the 
middle of dinner, the speaker standing in the middle of the hall " {A Bookseller 
of the Last Century, by C. Welsh, ed. 1885, p. 128). 



15. DISCIPLINE AT OXFORD (p. 66). 

William Scott (afterwards the great Admiralty Judge, Lord Stowell) 
entered Oxford in 1761 at the age of fifteen. Five years later he wrote to his 
father about a younger brother: "Send Jack up to me, I can do better for 
him here". Jack was the future Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Eldon 
(Twiss's Life of Eldon, ed. 1846, i., 38). William Scott would never have had 
him sent up to a life of idleness. 

R. L. Edgeworth, in 1761, entered Corpus Christi College as a gentleman- 
commoner. " I applied assiduously," he wrote, "not only to my studies 
under my excellent tutor, but also to the perusal of the best English writers. 
... I remember with satisfaction the pleasure I then felt from the conscious- 
ness of intellectual improvement." He speaks highly of his fellow-students 
{Memoirs of R. L. Edgeworth, ed. 1844, p. 55). 

The first Earl of Malmesbury, who entered Merton College in 1763, and 
resided two years, gives the same account as Gibbon : "The discipline of the 
University was so lax that a gentleman-commoner was under no restraint, 
and never called upon to attend either lectures, or chapel, or hall. M}^ tutor, 
an excellent and worthy man, according to the practice of all tutors at that 
moment, gave himself no concern about his pupils. I never saw him but 
during a fortnight ; when I took it into my head to be taught trigonometry " 
{Diaries of the First Earl of Malmesbury, Preface, p. 11). 

Bentham, who was at Queen's College at the same time, said : "I learnt 
nothing. I took to reading Greek of my own fancy ; but there was no 
encouragement. We just went to the foolish lectures of our Tutors to be 
taught something of logical jargon " (Bentham's Works, x., 41). 

Charles James Fox, who entered Hertford College at Michaelmas, 1764, 
at the age of fifteen, wi-ote : "I like Oxford well enough; I read there a 
great deal, and am very fond of mathematics. ... I really think to a man 
who reads a great deal there cannot be a more agreeable place." His father 
spoke of his son "studying very hard at Oxford' (Earl Russell's Life of Fox, 
ed. 1859, i., 6). 

Sir William Jones, entering University College in 1764, was at first as 
much disappointed as Gibbon ; but "this disgust soon subsided. He found 
in the University all the means and opportunity of study which he could 
wish. He perused all the Greek poets and historians of note, and the entire 
works of Plato and Lucian. He studied Persian, Hebrew, and German. He 
read the best authors in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. In his twenty- 
first year he began his De Poesi Asiatica. Seven years after he entered 
Oxford he sent a friend ' a little Philippic which I wrote against an obscure 
coxcomb who had the audacity to abuse our University '. When he took his 

19 



290 APPENDIX 

Master's Degree he composed an oration 'to display,' among other topics, 
'the transcendant advantages of the University of Oxford'. He said that 
' with the fortune of a peasant he gave himself the education of a prince '. 
He had been supported at Oxford, first by a scholarship and next by a fellow- 
ship" (Teignmouth's Life of Sir W. Jones, pp. 39-42, 44, 47, 126, 139). 

John James entered Queen's College in 1778. His father, who had been at 
the College thirty years earlier, on hearing from his son of " the modes of 
education there, wrote to a friend: "From the genius of the place, . . . 
the opportunities of libraries, &c., much may be expected from a lad of spirit 
— but from tutors, I verily believe, nothing". Two years later he wrote: 
"Do, my dear Sir, expose to the public the vile impositions practised upon 
them by these people under the liberal pretence of educating youth " [Letters 
of Radcliffe and James, pp. 53, 133). 

Southey, who entered Balliol College in 1792, wrote of his College in 1819 : 
' ' It has fairly obtained a new character, and is no longer the seat of drunken- 
ness, raflfery, and indiscipline, as it was in our days" (Southey's Life and 
Corres., iv., 342). 

Sir James Stephen, who left Cambridge in 1812, wrote in 1851 : " If I had 
the pen of Edward Gibbon, I could draw from my own experience a picture 
which would form no unmeet companion for that which he has bequeathed to 
us of his ediieation at Oxford. The three or four years during which I lived 
on the banks of the Cam were passed in a very pleasant, though not a very 
cheap, hotel. But if they had been passed at the Clarendon in Bond Street, 
I do not think that the exchange would have deprived me of any aids for 
intellectual discipline, or for acquiring literary or scientific knowledge" 
(Lectures on the History of France, ed. 1851, i. , Preface, p. 7). 



16. SUBSCRIPTION TO THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES (p. 67). 

' ' The forms of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh 
or a smile by the modern clergy " ( The Decline, vi., 128). 

Jeremy Bentham, when called upon to subscribe to the Articles, was per- 
plexed by doubts. "Communicating my distress to, some of my fellow- 
coUegiates I foimd them sharers in it. Upon inquiry it was found that 
among the Fellows of the College there was one to whose office it belonged, 
among other things, to remove all scruples. "We repaired to him vsrith fear 
and trembling. His answer was cold ; and the substance of it was — that it 
was not for uninformed youths, such as we, to presume to set up our 
private judgments against a public one, formed by some of the holiest, 
as well as best and wisest men, that ever lived. I signed ; but by the view 
I found myself forced to take of the whole business such an impression was 
made as will never depart from me but with life" (Bentham's Works, x., 37). 

On Feb. 6, 1772, a petition was presented to Parliament for the relief of 
clergymen and students at the Universities from subscription to the Thirty- 
Nine Articles. By a majority of 217 to 71 leave to bring up the petition was 
refused. Fox, "who", to quote Gibbon, "had prepared himself for that 
holy war by passing twenty-two hours in the pious exercise of hazard, " losing 
£11,000, supported the majority, and so did Burke {Misc. Works, ii,, 74 ; 
Pari. Hist., xvii., 245-296 ; "QosweS}^^ Johnson, ii., 150). 

Lord Westbury, in a debate in the House of Lords, in 1863, on the pro- 
posal to abolish subscriptions to formularies of faith as a qualification for 
degrees at Oxford, said : ' ' My attention was singularly fixed upon this matter 
many years ago, when I matriculated at the University at the early age of 
fourteen. I was told by the Vice-Chancellor, ' You are too young to take the 
common oath of obedience to the Statutes of the University, but are quite old 
enough to subscribe the Articles of Religion'" {Life of Lord Westbury, by T. 
A. Nash, ed. 1888, i., 14). 



APPENDIX 291 

It was not till Michaelmas term, 1854, that by Act of Parliament subscrip- 
tion was no longer required for matriculation and the Bachelor's degree. In 
1871, by a second Act, the higher degrees were also made free. My old 
friend and fellow-student, the late Professor John Nichol, of Glasgow 
University, who would not subscribe the Articles, was thereby debarred from 
all chance of a fellowship, which should have been the reward of his high 
attainments (See Memoirs of John Nichol, p. 141). I, too, was debarred for 
many years from advancing beyond the Bachelor's degree. 

Dr. Edward Bentham, Regius Professor of Divinity, replying to Burke's 
" illiberal aspersions of the University of Oxford " in his speech on Nov. 2, 
1773 [Pari. Hist., xviii., 854), had the impudence to write : "Here Philosophy 
and Theology reciprocally join their assisting powers together, to point out to 
our ingenuous youth the characteristics that constitute the difference between 
justice and dishonesty, truth and falsehood, liberty and licentiousness. . . . 
Here we peruse with sedulous attention the ancient pages of the Grecian and 
Roman sages. . . . But lest our attention should be so engrossed by a constant 
application to ancient History as to neglect tliose transactions that are nearer 
to our times. King George I. has encouraged the study of modern History 
with a munificence which does honour to Royalty. No wonder then that our 
excellent mode of education should be viewed with admiration by foreigners, 
and extort the eulogiums even of the most prejudiced " ( The Honour of the 
University of Oxford Defended, he, London, n.d., p. 5). 



17. LAWS AGAINST POPERY (p. 73). 

Blackstone, after giving a summary of the laws against Poperj^, continues : 
"Of which the President Montesquieu observes that they are so rigorous, 
though not professedly of the sanguinary kind, that they do all the hurt that 
can possibly be done in cold blood. But in answer to this it may be observed 
(what foreigners, who only judge from our statute-book, are not fully 
apprised of) that these laws are seldom exerted to their utmost extent ; and, 
indeed, if they were, it would be very difficult to excuse them. . . . But if a 
time should ever arrive, and perhaps it is not very distant, when all fears of a 
Pretender shall have vanished, and the power and influence of the Pope shall 
become feeble, ridiculous, and despicable, not only in England, but in every 
kingdom of Europe, it probably would not then be remiss to review and soften 
these rigorous edicts ; at least till the civil principles of the Roman Catholics 
called again upon the legislature to renew them : for it ought not to be left in 
the breast of every merciless bigot to drag down the vengeance of these 
occasional laws upon inoffensive, though mistaken, subjects ; in opposition to 
the lenient inclinations of the civil magistrate, and to the destruction of every 
principle of toleration and religious liberty" {Comment.,^ p. 57). 

Gibbon, in The Decline, he, vi., 128, «., after referring to Blackstone, con- 
tinues : "The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the Trinity, 
would still leave a tolerable scope for persecution, if the national spirit were 
not more effectual than a hundred statutes ". 

"April 26, 1748. Ireland. — One George Williams was convicted at Wex- 
ford Assizes for being perverted from the Protestant to the Popish religion, 
and sentenced to be out of the King's protection, his lands and tenements, 
goods and chattels, to be forfeited to the King, and his body to remain at the 
King's pleasure" {Gent. Mag., 1748, p. 186). 

" Oct. 20, 1755. — At the Westminster Quarter Sessions a bill of indictment 
was found against two Popish priests, who have been lately very busy in 
making converts" (ib., 1755, p. 473). 

"Aug. 20, 1767. — At the Assizes at Croydon, John Baptist Malony was 
tried for unlawfully exercising the function of a Popish priest, and admin- 
istering the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper to divers persons, after the 



292 APPENDIX 

manner of the Church of Rome, when he was found guilty, and received 
sentence of perpetual imprisonment " {Gent. Mag., 1767, p. 428). He was set 
free by the Government in defiance of the law [Pari. Hist., xix., 1139, 1145). 
See also Boswell's Johnson, iii., 427, n., and Johnson's Letters, i., 401, n. 

It was stated in the House of Commons in 1791 that " in Burn's Ecclesi- 
astical Law, a book in almost every gentleman's hands, no less than seventy 
pages were occupied with an enumeration of the penal statutes still in force 
against Roman Catholics " {Pari. Hist., xxviii., 1262). 



18. LECTURES OF SIR WILLIAM SCOTT AND SIR WILLIAM 
BLACKSTONE (p. 80). 

{a) Sir William Scott. 

William Scott was Camden Professor of Ancient History from 1774 to 
1785. He was knighted in 1788 on being made King's Advocate-General. 
He was made Judge of the High Court of Admiralty in 1798, and was raised 
to the peerage by the title of Baron Stowell in 1821. 

John James wrote from Queen's College in 1779 that Scott's lectures "are 
perhaps superior to anything of the kind in point of elegance and erudition. 
The price of attendance was three guineas. Scott is intimate with Dr. 
Johnston [Johnson]. He has a good deal of the Doctor's manner. Some- 
times he copies his faults. . . . Describing the houses of the Athenians he 
acquainted his audience ' that they had no convenience by which the volatile 
parts of fire could be conveyed into the open air '. How would a bricklayer 
stare at being told that he meant no more than that the Athenians had 
no chimneys ! One great inconvenience attended this constant and studied 
elevation ; for whenever he popped out a familiar word, for which it was 
impossible to substitute a synonyme, it came from him Avith as ill a grace as 
an oath would from a Bishop " {Letters of Radcliffe and James, p. 92). The 
lectures were never published. Dean Milman saw them in manuscript ( The 
Decline, ed. Milman, 1854, i., 40). Francis Newbery {ante, p. 289) "attended 
the annual lectures by Dr. Smith in anatomy and chemistry " {A Bookseller 
of the Last Centuj-y, p. 128). 

James Harris (first Earl of Malmesbury), who was at Merton College in 
1764, attended "anatomical lectures, as well as those of Dr. Blackstone". 
The following year his mother wrote to him : " You are desired not to attend 
the anatomical lectures this year, as your father has no idea of bringing you 
up as a surgeon " {Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, ed. 1870, 1, 103, 
122). 

{h) Sir William Blackstone. 

Charles Viner, who died in 1756, left £12,000 to found a Professorship of 
Common Law, and such fellowships and scholarships as the fund might 
support. Blackstone, the first professor, delivered his first lecture in October, 
1758. The Commentaries were not wholly due to the benefaction. In the 
Preface he says: "The original plan took its rise in the year 1753; and 
notwithstanding the novelty of such an attempt in this age and country, and 
the prejudices usually conceived against any innovations in the established 
mode of education, he had the satisfaction to find, " etc. 

His successor was Sir Robert Chambers, who retained his oflSce till 1777, 
three years after he had "gone as a Judge, with six thousand a year, to 
Bengal" (Boswell's Johnson, ii., 264). He was allowed to retain it "to see 
whether the climate of India would suit him" {Did. of Nat. Biog.). His 
Principalship of New Inn Hall he retained till his death in 1803. For a 
ludicrous story told by his Deputy-Professor, John Scott, see Life of Lord 
Eldon, ed. 1846, i., 67. 



APPENDIX 293 

Among the Vinerian scholars are to be found the names of Sir J. T. 
Coleridge and Sir Walter Phillimore, Judges of the Court of Queen's Bench ; 
Lord Chancellor Westbury, Lord Justice Chitty, and Mr. James Bryce. The 
present Vinerian Law Professor is Mr. A. V. Dicey. 

19. GIBBON'S RECONVERSION (p. 90). 

Gibbon wrote to Miss Porten in February, 1755 : "I have at length good 
news to tell you ; I am now good Protestant, and am extremely glad of it. I 
have in all my letters taken notice of the different movements of my mind. 
Entirely Catholic when I came to Lausanne, wavering long time between the 
two systems, and at last fixed for the Protestant ; when that conflict was 
over, I had still another difiSculty. Brought up with all the ideas of the 
Church of England, I could scarce resolve to Communion vnth Presbyterians, 
as all the people of this country are. I at last got over it in considering that 
whatever difference there may be between their churches and ours in the 
government and discipline, they still regard us as brethren, and profess the 
same faith as us. Determined, then, in my design, I declared it to the 
ministers of the town assembled at Mr. Pavilliard's, who, having examined 
me, approved of it, and permitted me to receive the Communion with them, 
which I did Christmas Day, from the hands of Mr. Pavilliard, who appeared 
extremely glad of it. I am so extremely myself, and do assure you feel a joy 
pure, and the more so as I know it to be not only innocent but laudable 
(Co /-res., L, 2). "This letter," writes Lord Sheffield, "is cvuious, as it shows 
in how short a time (not more than a year and a half) he had adopted the 
idiom of the French language, and lost that of his own" (Afisc. Works, i., 85). 

In Read's I/ist. Studies, ii., 287, is given (unfortunately not in the original) 
an extract from the Registrc des Sdajices de rAssemhlie pastorale de VEglise de 
Lausanne, relating Gibbon's conversion and admission to the Communion. 
Pavilliard testified that "to his great intelligence were added purity of 
sentiment and regularity of conduct ". 

20. GIBBON'S EARLY LOVE (p. 107). 

Mile. Curchod thus described him : " II a de beaux cheveux, la main jolie, 
et I'air d'une personne de condition. Sa physionomie est si spirituelle et 
singuli^re, que je ne connais personne qui lui ressemble. EUe a tant d'expres- 
sion, qu'on y d^couvre presque toujours quelque chose de nouveau. Ses gestes 
sont si k propos, qu'ils ajoutent beaucoup k ce qu'il dit. En un mot, c'est une 
de ces physionomies, si extraordinaires, qu'on ne se lasse presque point de 
I'examiner, de le peindre et de le contrefaire. II connait les 6gards que Ton 
doit aux femmes. Sa politesse est ais6e sans etre trop familifere. II danse 
m^diocrement. En un mot, je lui connais pen des agr^ments qui font le 
m^rite d'un petit maitre. Son esprit varie prodigieusement. " Here the 
description breaks off {Le Salon de Madame Necker, i., 35). 

On the famous passage in the text where Gibbon says " I sighed as a lover, 
I obeyed as a son," he has the following note : "See (Euvres de Rousseau, 
tom. xxxiii., pp. 88, 89, octavo edition. As an author I shall not appeal from 
the judgment, or taste, or caprice of Jea?i Jacques : but that extraordinary 
man, whom I admire and pity, should have been less precipitate in condemn- 
ing the moral character and conduct of a stranger. " 

Sainte-Beuve, referring to this passage writes: "Gibbon se d^gagea 
envers mademoiselle Curchod bien plus tard qu'on ne pourrait le supposer, 
et cinq ans seulement apr^s avoir quitt^ la Suisse. On n'a pas assez 
remarqu6 que c'est de Gibbon qu'il s agit dans une lettre de Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau k Moxilton, dat6e de Motiers et du 4 juin 1763 : ' Vous me 



294 APPENDIX 

donnez pour mademoiselle Curchod, 6crit Jean-Jacques, una commission 
dont je m'acquitterai mal, pr6cis6ment a cause de mon estime pour elle. 
Le refroidissement de M. Gibbon me fait mal penser de lui ; j'ai revu son 
livre {V£ssai siir I'dtude de la littdraiure). II y court apres I'esprit ; il s'y 
guinde. M. Gibbon n'est point mon homme : je ne puis croire qu'il soit celui 
de mademoiselle Curchod. Qui ne sent pas son prix n'est pas digne d'elle ; 
mais qui I'a pu sentir et s'en d^tache est un homme a m^priser.' Gibbon a 
I'honnStet^ de renvoyer k cette lettre ou les noms 6taient rest^s masques 
par des initiales" {Causeries du Lundi, viii., 440). 

Gibbon landed in England on 4th May, 1758. It was not till 24th 
August, 1762, that he broke off the engagement. In May, 1763, Moulton, a 
Swiss pastor, a frieiid both of Mile. Curchod and Rousseau, wrote to tell her 
that Rousseau, who was living at Motiers, had heard from a lady at Paris 
"qu'une foule d' Anglais alloit partir de Paris pour Motiers. Si M. Gibbon, 
ajoute-t-elle, est du nombre. receves [sic] le bie7i, ca?- c'est un homme cPun 
trh grmid jnirite et fort insti-uit. Sur cela (pardonnds [sic] le moy, chere 
Belle) je fis votre histoire k Rousseau, et cette histoire I'int^ressa fort. . . . 
II me promit que, si Gibbon venoit, il ne maiiqueroit pas de lui parler de 
vous, et de lui en parler d'une mani^re tres avantageuse." Gibbon did not go 
to Motiers and so did not see Rousseau. On his arrival at Lausanne she let 
him know by a letter from Geneva that he was still dear to her. This letter 
was preserved, but not his answer. Her rejoinder, dated 4th June, 1763, 
shows that it had given her great pain. Nevertheless she could not have lost 
all hope, for she asked for his friendship, and offered to provide him with an 
introduction to Rousseau. She begged him moreover to keep up a corre- 
spondence with her, and to meet her. He replied : ' ' Mais cette correspondance, 
mademoiselle, j'en sens tous les agr^ments, mais en meme temps j'en sens 
tout le danger. Je le confois par rapport k moi, je le crains pour tous les 
deux. Permettez que le silence m'en dirobe." 

Some weeks later she met him by chance at Ferney, and was treated by 
him with harshness. On Sept. 21 she wrote to him : ' ' Intimid^e et accabl6e 
k Fernex par le jeu continuel d'lme gayet^ forc^e et par la duret6 de vos 
r^ponses, mes Ifevres tremblantes refus^rent absolument de me servir ; vous 
m assurates en d'autres termes que vous rougissiez pour moi du role que je 
soutenois ; monsieur, je n'ai jamais su confondre les. droits de riionnStet^ 
avec ceux de I'amour-propre ". She goes on to remind him that he had asked 
her to marry him without waiting for his father's consent, and that for love 
of him she had refused an advantageous offer. In spite of all reports to the 
contrary she had, she maintained, been faithful to him. She continued : 
" Oui, je commence a le croire, vous auriez g^mi sur mon existence ; elle pouvait 
nuire k vos projets de fortune ou d'ambition " [Le Salon de Madame Necker, 
par le Vicomte d'Haussonville, 1882, i., 57-76). For some letters of his to her 
written during his first residence in Lausanne see ib., i., 39-53. 

D'Haussonville, to make the matter worse, says that in 1758 ' ' le pere de 
Gibbon 6tait tr^s 9.g6 ". He was only fifty-one, so that the son could not 
have counted on an early independence. 

Gibbon's suspicions that she had been looking out for another match are 
somewhat justified by a letter she wrote to Moulton in 1764, when it seemed 
likely, but not certain, that Necker would offer to marry her. "Mais, si 
notre brillante chimere s'^vanouit, j 'Spouse Correvon (c'est le nom de I'avocat 
d'Yverdon) I'^t^ prochain. II ne cesse de me pers^cuter, et tous mes parens 
avec lui " {ib., i., 105). At that time, at all events, she had two strings to 
her bow. 

Over Gibbon a great change had come in his five years' absence. In his first 
long residence at Lausanne under the pastor's roof his life, so far as we know, 
had been innocent. " J'avais ime tres belle reputation ici pour les moem's," he 
wrote soon after his return (ante, p. ,158, w.). In those early days he had not 
"kept his wing'd affections dipt with crime". The coarse minds and brutal 



APPENDIX 295 

habits of his brother-officers in the Militia must have left their taint on him. In 
Paris, whence he came straight to Lausanne, he had indulged in a guilty love. 
How deep the corruption had entered he showed in the letter which he wrote 
three years later [ante, p. 153, n.). During his tour in Italy Mile. Curehod 
became Mme. Necker. On his way home he saw a great deal of the newly- 
married couple in their house in Paris, though he says nothing of this in his 
Autobiography. What he thought of her and what she thought of him is 
told in the two following letters. On Oct. 31, 1765, he wrote to Holroyd : 
' ' The Curehod (Necker) I saw at Paris. She was very fond of me, and the 
husband particularly civil. Could they insult me more cruelly ? Ask me 
every evening to supper ; go to bed, and leave me alone with his wife — what 
an impertinent security ! It is making an old lover of mighty little conse- 
quence. She is as handsome as ever, and much genteeler ; seems pleased 
with her fortune rather than proud of it. I was (perhaps indiscreetly enough) 
exalting Nanette de lUen's good luck and the fortune. ' What fortune ? ' said 
she, with an air of contempt — ' not above 20,000 livres a year.' I smiled, and 
she caught herself immediately. ' What airs I give myself in despising 
20,000 livres a year, who a year ago looked upon 800 as the summit of my 
wishes ' " [Corres., i., 81). 

A week later she wrote to Mme. de Brenles : " Je ne sais, Madame, si je 
vous ai dit que j'ai vu Gibbon ; j'ai 6t6 sensible k ce plaisir au-del^ de toute 
expression, non qu'il me reste aucun sentiment pour un homme qui je crois 
n'en m^rite gu^re ; mais ma vanity feminine n'a jamais eu un triomphe plus 
complet et plus honnete. II a rest^ deux semaines a Paris ; je I'ai eu tous les 
jours chez moi ; il 6tait devenu doux, souple, humble, decent jusqu'i la 
pudeur ; t^moin perp^tuel de la tendresse de mon mari, de son esprit, et de 
son enjouement ; admirateur z616 de I'opulence, il me fit remarquer pour la 
premiere fois celle qui m'entoure, ou du moins jusqu'alors elle n'avait fait sur 
moi qu'une sensation desagr^able " (Lettres Diverses Recueillies en Suisse, par 
le Comte F^dor Golowkin, 1821, p. 265). 

' ' The de Brenles mansion was in front of the door of La Grotte, the home of 
Deyverdun and Gibbon. It was demolished in January, 1896, some months 
before La Grotte was destroyed" (Read's Hist. Studies, ii., 312). 



21. ENGLISH HISTORIANS (p. 122). 

(1716.) "Our country, which has produced writers of the first fig-ure in 
every other kind of work, has been very barren in good historians " 
(Addison, The Freeholder, No. 35). 

(1734.) Voltaire {CEuvres, xxiv., 137), after speaking of English poets and 
philosophers, continues : "Pour de bons historiens, je ne leur en connais pas 
encore ; il a f allu qu'un Franpais [Rapin] ait 6crit leur histoire ". 

(1735.) "Our nation has furnished as ample and as important matter, 
good and bad, for history, as any nation under the sun ; and yet we must 
yield the palm in writing history most certainly to the Italians and to the 
French, and I fear even to the Germans " (Bolingbroke, Works, ed. 1809, 
iii., 454). 

(1751.) "It is observed that our nation, which has produced so many 
authors eminent for almost every other species of literary excellence, has 
been hitherto remarkably barren of historical genius " (Johnson, The 
Rambler, No. 122). 

(1754.) "It could not perhaps be too much to affirm that Camden's 
History of Queen Elizabeth is among the best historical productions which 
have yet been composed by any Englishman. It is well known that the 
English have not much excelled in that kind of literature " (Hume, History 
of England, ed. 1773, vi., 195). 

(1755.) "Avec unpen de franchise, et si nous voulons nous rendre une 



296 APPENDIX 

justice exacte, il faut mSme convenir que le talent d'historien a disparu avec 
les anciens, et qa'k un Fran9ais et deux ou trois Italiens pres, les modernes 
n'ont eu personne qui puisse etre cit6. Plafons Guichardin, Davila, M. de 
Thou a une distance convenable de Plutarque, de Tite-Live, et de Tacite, et 
tout le reste des modernes a une distance infinie des premiers " (Baron de 
Grimm, M ^moires Historiques, &c., ed. 1814, i., 168). 

(1761.) "Our writers had commonly so ill succeeded in history; the 
Italians, and even the French, had so long continued our acknowledged 
superiors, that it was almost feared that the British genius, which had so 
happily displayed itself in every other kind of writing, and had gained the 
prize in most, yet could not enter the list in this. The historical work Mr. 
Hume first published discharged our country from this opprobrium " 
(Burke (?), Annual Register, 1761, ii., 301). 

(1770.) "I believe this is the historical age, and this [the Scotch] the 
historical nation " (Hume, Letters of Hume to Strahan, p. 155). 

(1828.) " The historians of our own comitry are unequalled in depth and 
precision of reason ; and even in the works of our mere compilers we often 
meet with speculations beyond the reach of Thucydides or Tacitus " 
(Macaulay, Misc. Writings, ed. 1871, p. 153). 

(1849.) "The truth is that I admire no historians much except Hero- 
dotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus. Perhaps, in his way, a very peculiar way, 
I might add Fra Paolo. The modern writers who have most of the great 
qualities of the ancient masters of history are some memoir writers ; St. 
Simon for example. There is merit, no doubt, in Hume, Robertson, Voltaire, 
and Gibbon. Yet it is not the thing " (Macaulay, Trevelyan's Life, ed. 1877, 
ii., 270). 

Condorcet says, in his Life of Voltaire: "Voltaire a I'honneur d'avoir 
fait, dans la mani^re d'^crire I'histoire, une revolution dont a la v6rit6 
I'Angleterre a presque seule profits jusqu'ici. Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, 
Watson [History of Philip //.], peuvent, k quelques 6gards, etre regard^s 
comme sortis de son ^cole (CEuvres de Voltaire, Ixiv., 90). 

"Hume," said Johnson, "would never have written History, had not 
Voltaire written it before him. He is an echo of Voltaire " (Boswell's John- 
son, ii., 53). "Hume's manner," wrote Horace Walpole, "is imitated from 
Voltaire" (Walpole's Letters, ii., 429). 



22. ROBERTSON AND HUME (p. 122). 

Gibbon wrote to Robertson in 1783: "I will frankly own that my pride 
is elated as often as I find myself ranked in the triumvirate of British 
Historians of the present age, and though I feel myself the Lepidus, I con- 
template with pleasure the superiority of my colleagues " (Dugald Stewart's 
Life of Robertson, ed. 1811, p. 305). Lepidus was the "slight unmeritable 
man" joined with Antony and Octavius (Julius Ctzsar, iv., 1., 12). Five 
years later Gibbon wrote again to Robertson : ' ' The praise which has ever been 
the most flattering to my ear is to find my name associated with the names 
of Robertson and Hume ; and provided I can maintain my place in the 
ti'iumvirate, I am indifferent at what distance I am ranked below my com- 
panions and masters " (Life of Robertson, ed. 1811, p. 367). In The Decline, 
vii., 296, he says that " Guicciardini and Machiavel, Fra Paolo, and Davila 
were justly esteemed the first historians of modern languages, till, in the 
present age, Scotland arose, to dispute the prize with Italy herself". He 
thus praises Robertson : ' ' The eloquence of a modern historian has rendered 
the name of Charles V. so familiar to an English reader " (ib., i., 385). In the 
Preface to the second half of the History (ib., i., Preface, p. 11) he speaks 
of him as "a master-artist ". In his Vindication he calls him ' ' the first 
historian of the present age " (Misc. Works, iv., 516). See also ante, p. 195. 



APPENDIX 297 

Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son on April IG, 1759 : "There is an History 
lately come out of the Reign of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her son (no matter 
by whom) King James, written by one Robertson, a Scotchman, which for 
clearness, purity, and dignity of style I will not scruple to compare with the 
best historians extant, not excepting Davila, Guicciardini, and perhaps Livy " 
[Letters to his Son, iv., 178). 

Johnson reproached Robertson with "verbiage". "If Robertson's style 
be faulty, he owes it to me ; that is having too many words, and those too 
big ones" (Bo&vfeW's Johnson, ii., 236; iii., 173). 

Hume he accused of gallicisms. "Why, Sir, his style is not English ; the 
structure of his sentences is French " (ib., i., 439). "I told Johnson," writes 
Boswell, "that David Hume had made a short collection of Scotticisms. 
'I wonder (said he) that he should find them'" (ib., ii., 72). Strahan, the 
printer. Dr. Beattie tells us, " had corrected the phraseology of both Hume 
and Robertson " (Forbes's Beattie, ed. 1824, p. 341 ). Johnson, most likely, 
had helped Strahan in correcting Robertson (.Johnson's Letters, i., 412). 

Lord Mansfield told Dr. A. Carljde that "when he was reading Hume and 
Robertson's books he did not think he was reading English " (Dr. A. Carlyle's 
Auto., p. 516). 

On the other hand Horace Walpole, in 1755, said of Hume's History in its 
first edition, and not in its later ones, which were cleared of many inaccu- 
racies of style: "His style, which is the best we have in history, and his 
manner imitated from Voltaire, are very pleasing " (Walpole's Letters, ii., 
429). In 1791 he wrote : "As Dr. Robertson has not the genius, penetration, 
sagacity, and art of Mr. Gibbon, he cannot melt his materials together, and 
make them elucidate, and even improve and produce, new discoveries ; in 
short, he cannot, like Mr Gibbon, make an original picture with some bits of 
Mosaic" [ib., ix., 361). 

Cowper, writing to John Newton in 1783 of "the two most renowned 
writers of history the present day has seen," continues : "In your style I see 
no affectation. In every line of theirs I see nothing else. They disgust me 
always, Robertson with his pomp and his strut, and Gibbon with his finical 
and French manners " (Southey's Cowper, iv., 291). 

Lord Brougham, whose mother was Robertson's niece, wrote in 1838 : "I 
have some little knack of narrative, the most difficult by far of all styles, and 
never yet attained in perfection but by Hume and Livy " (Macvey Napier, 
Corres., p. 239). 

"Are there not in the Dissertatioti on India, the last of Dr. Robertson's 
works . . . Scotticisms at which a London apprentice would laugh?" 
(Macaulay's iiJ^ay-y, ed. 1874, iv., 181.) 

"Hume," writes Bagehot, "is always idiomatic, but his idioms are con- 
stantly wrong ; many of his best passages are on that account curiously 
grating and puzzling ; you feel that they are very like what an Englishman 
would say ; but yet that, after all, somehow or other, they are what he never 
would say. There is a minute seasoning of imperceptible difference which 
distracts your attention, and which you are for ever stopping to analyse " 
[Biog. Studies, i., 272). 

Saint-Beuve, after quoting Gibbon's praise of Hume, continues : " Cette 
parole est bien celle d'un homme de gofit qui appr^cie X6nophon \ante,^ p. 92]. 
On a si souvent dans ces derni^res annees d6clar6 David Hume vaincu et 
surpass^, que je me plais i rappeler un t^moig-nage si vif et si d61icatement 
rendu" (Causeries, viii., 445). 

Carlyle, in 1818, wrote of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon: "The whole 
historical triumvirate are abundantly destitute of virtuous feeling — or indeed 
of any feeling at all " [Early Letters of Carlyle, i., 143). 



298 APPENDIX 

23. A STANDING ARMY (p. 135). 

The general dislike of a standing army is shown in Dryden's lines (Pala- 
mon and Arcite, iii., 671) :■ — 

' ' Laughed all the powers who f avovu- tyranny, 
And all the standing army of the sky." 

The following extracts illustrating this dislike I have arranged in order of 
time : — 

(1707.) "There is not a more disagreeable thought to the people of Great 
Britain than that of a standing army " (Addison, Works, ed. 1864, iv., 356). 

(1726.) " Above all, he [the King of Brobdingnag] was amazed to hear me 
talk of a mercenary standing army, in the midst of peace, and among a free 
people" (Swift, Works, ed. 1883, xi., 159). 

(Undated.) "A standing army in England, whether in time of j)eace or 
war, is a direct absurdity " {ib., ix., 257). 

(1734.) "It is certain that if ever such men as call themselves friends to 
the government, but are real enemies of the constitution, prevail, they will 
make it a capital point of their wicked policy to keep up a standing army " 
(Lord Bolingbroke, Works, ed. 1809, iii., 164). 

(1735.) Lord Hervey (iMe??toirs, ii., 80), talking in 1735 to Queen Caroline, 
"who loved troops full as well as the Eang," said that "as a standing army 
was the thing in the world that was most disliked in this coimtry, so the 
reduction of any part of it was a measure that always made any Prince more 
popular than any other he could take ". 

(1742, during the war with Spain.) " April 29. — We had a debate yester- 
day in the House on a proposal for replacing four thousand men of some that 
are to be sent abroad, that, in short, we might have fifteen thousand men to 
guard the Kingdom. This was strongly opposed by the Tories, but we carried 
it by 280 against 139 " (Horace Walpole, Letters, i., 159). 

(1730-45. ) In the Index to The Gent. Mag. for these years there are fifty 
entries under the head, "Army, standing, for and against". 

(1757.) "A standing army of mercenary troops always at last begin to look 
upon themselves as the masters of that country where they are kept up " 
(Earl Stanhope, Pari. Hist., xv., 710). 

(1757.) " That foreign weed called a standing army. Such an army never 
was the natural produce of this Idngdom, and while it is under its present 
regulation, I can hardly call those that belong to it Englishmen " (Duke of 
Bedford, ib., p. 720). 

(1761.) "It cannot but ofifend everj^ Englishman to see troops of soldiers 
placed between him and his sovereign " (.Johnson, Works, v., 458). 

(1765.) "Nothing then . . . ought to be more guarded against in a free 
state than making the military power, when such a one is necessary to be 
kept on foot, a body too distinct from the people. Like ours, therefore, it 
should wholly be composed of natural subjects ; it ought only to be enlisted 
for a short and limited time ; the soldiers also should live intermixed with 
the people ; no separate camp, no barracks, no inland fortresses should be 
allowed (Blackstone, Comment., ed. 1775, i., 414). 

(1781.) "The invincible jealousy of military power, which had so long 
characterised this country, grew familiarised to the aspect of camps and 
garrisons" (Burke, A7in. Reg., 1781, i., 138). 



24. AN EXTRACT FROM GIBBON'S JOURNAL— LIFE IN THE 
MILITIA (p. 135). 

Journal, 1761, January 11. — In these seven or eight months of a most 
disagreeably active life, I have had no studies to set down ; indeed, I hardly 



APPENDIX 299 

took a book in my hand the whole time. Tlie first two months at Blandford, 
I might have done something ; but the novelty of the thing, of which for 
some time I was so fond as to think of going into the army, our field-days, 
our dinners abroad, and the drinking and late hours we got into, prevented 
any serious reflections. From the day we marched from Blandford I had 
hardly a moment I could call my own, almost continually in motion ; if I 
was fixed for a day, it was in the guard-room, a barrack, or an inn. Our dis- 
putes consumed the little time I had left. Every letter, every memorial 
relative to them fell to my share ; and our evening conferences were used to 
hear all the morning hours strike. At last I got to Dover, and Sir Thomas 
[ante, p. 136] left us for two months. The charm was over, I was sick of so 
hatefiil a service ; I was settled in a comparatively quiet situation. Once more 
I began to taste the pleasure of thinking. 

Recollecting some thoughts I had formerly had in relation to the system of 
Paganism, which I intended to make use of in my Essay, I resolved to read 
Tully de Natura Deorum, and finished it in about a month. I lost some time 
before I could recover my habit of application. 

October 23. — Our first design was to march through Marlborough ; but 
finding on inquiry that it was a bad road, and a great way about, we resolved 
to push for the Devizes in one day, though nearly thirty miles. "We accord- 
ingly arrived there about three o'clock in the afternoon. 

November 2. [This date evidently marks the beginning, and not the end, 
of a period.] — I have very little to say for this and the following month. 
Nothing could be more uniform than the life I led there. The little civility 
of the neighbouring gentlemen gave us no opportunity of dining out ; the time 
of year did not tempt us to any excursions round the country ; and at first my 
indolence, and afterwards a violent cold, prevented n\j going over to Bath. 
I believe in the two months I never dined or lay from quarters. I can there- 
fore only set down what I did in the literary way. Designing to recover my 
Greek, which I had somewhat neglected, I set myself to read Homer, and 
finished the four first books of the Iliad, with Pope's translation and notes ; 
at the same time, to understand the geography of the Iliad, and particularly 
the catalogue, I read the books 8th, 9th, 10th, I2th, 13th, and 14th of 
Strabo, in Casaubon's Latin translation ; I likewise read Hume's History of 
England to the Reign of Henry the Seventh, just published, ingenious but 
superficial ; and the Journal des Sfavans for August, September, and 
October, 1761, with the Bibliotheque des Sciences, &c., from July to October. 
Both these Journals speak very handsomely of my book. 

December 25, 1761. — When, upon finishing the year, I take a review of 
what I have done, I am not dissatisfied vnth what I did in it, upon making 
proper allowances. On the one hand, I could begin nothing before the middle 
of January. The Deal duty lost me part of February ; although I was at 
home part of March, and all April, yet electioneering is no friend to the 
Muses. May, indeed, though dissipated by our sea parties, was pretty quiet ; 
but June was absolutely lost, upon the march, at Alton, and settling our- 
selves in camp. The four succeeding months in camp allowed me little leisure 
and less quiet. November and December were indeed as much my own as 
any time can be whilst I remain in the militia ; but still it is, at best, not a 
life for a man of letters. However, in this tumultuous year (besides smaller 
things which I have set down) I read four books of Homer in Greek, six of 
Strabo in Latin, Cicero de Natura Deorum, and the great philosophical and 
theological work of M. de Beausobre : I wrote in the same time a long dis- 
sertation on the succession of Naples {ante, p. 144] ; reviewed, fitted for the 
press, and augmented above a fourth, my Bssai sur I'Etude de la Litt^rature 
{ante, p. 126]. 

In the six weeks I passed at Beriton, as I never stirred from it, every day 
was like the former. I had neither visits, hunting, or walking. My only 
resources were myself, my books, and family conversations. — But to me these 
were great resources. 



800 APPENDIX 

April 24, 1762. — I waited upon Colonel Harvey in the morning, to get him 
to apply for me to be brigade-major to Lord Effingham, as a post I should be 
very fond of, and for which I am not unfit. Harvey received me with great 
good nature and candour, told me he was both willing and able to serve me ; 
that indeed he had already apjjlied to Lord Effingham for Leake, one of his 
own officers, and though there would be more than one brigade -major, he did 
not think he could properly recommend two ; but that if I could get some 
other person to break the ice, he would second it, and believed he should 
succeed : should that fail, as Leake was in bad circumstances, he believed he 
could make a compromise with him (this was my desire) to let me do the 
duty without pay. I went from him to the Mallets, who pro)nised to get Sir 
Charles Howard to speak to Lord Effingham. 

May 8. — This was my birthday, on which I entered into the twenty -sixth 
year of my age. This gave me occasion to look a little into myself, and con- 
sider impartially my good and bad qualities. It appeared to me, upon this 
inquiry, that my character was virtuous, incapable of a base action, and 
formed for generous ones ; but that it was proud, violent, and disagreeable in 
society. These qualities I must endeavour to cultivate, extirpate, or restrain, 
according to their different tendency. Wit I have none. My imagination is 
rather strong than pleasing. My memory both capacious and retentive. The 
shining qualities of my understanding are extensiveness and penetration ; but 
I want both quickness and exactness. As to my situation in life, though I 
may sometimes repine at it, it perhaps is the best adapted to my character. 
I can command all the conveniences of life, and I can command too that 
independence (that first earthly blessing), which is hardly to be met with in a 
higher or lower fortune. When I talk of my situation, I must exclude that 
temporary one, of being in the militia. Though I go through it with spirit 
and application, it is both unfit for, and unworthy of me. 

August 22. — I went with Ballard to the French church [at Southampton], 
where I heard a most indiflterent sermon preached by M. . . . A very bad style, 
a worse pronunciation and action, and a very great vacuity of ideas, composed 
this excellent performance. Upon the whole, which is preferable, the philo- 
sophic method of the English, or the rhetoric of the French preachers ? The 
first (though less glorious) is certainly safer for the preacher. It is difficult for 
a man to make himself ridiculous, who proposes only to deliver plain sense on 
a subject he has thoroughly studied. But the instant he discovers the least 
pretentions towards the sublime, or the pathetic, there is no medium ; we 
must either admire or laugh : and there are so many various talents requisite 
to form the character of an orator, that it is more than probable we shall 
laugh. As to the advantage of the hearer, which ought to be the great con- 
sideration, the dilemma is much greater. Excepting in some particular cases, 
where we are blinded by popular prejudices, we are in general so well 
acquainted with our duty, that it is almost superfluous to convince us of it. 
It is the heart, and not the head, that holds out ; and it is certainly possible, 
by a moving eloquence, to rouse the sleeping sentiments of that heart, and 
incite it to acts of virtue. Unluckily it is not so much acts, as habits of 
virtue, we should have in view ; and the preacher who is inculcating, with 
the eloquence of a Bourdaloue, the necessity of a virtuous life, will dismiss 
his assembly full of emotions, which a variety of other objects, the coldness 
of our northern constitutions, and no immediate opportunity of exerting their 
good resolutions, will dissipate in a few moments. 

August 24. — The same reason that carried so many people to the assembly 
to-night, was what kept me away ; I mean the dancing. 

August 28. — To-day Sir Thomas came to us to dinner. The Spa has done 
him a great deal of good, for he looks another man. Pleased to see him, we 
kept bumperising till after roll-calling ; Sir Thomas assuring us, every fresh 
bottle, how infinitely soberer he was grown. 

August 29. — I felt the usual consequences of Sir Thomas's company, and 



APPENDIX 



301 



lost a morning, because I had lost the day before. However, having finished 
Voltaire, I returned to Le Clerc (I mean for the amusement of my leisure 
hours) ; and laid aside for some time his Bibliotheque Universelle, to look into 
the Bibliotheque Choisie, which is by far the better work. 

September 23.- Colonel Wilkes, of the Buckinghamshire Militia, dined 
with us, and renewed the acquaintance Sir Thomas and myself had begun 
with him at Reading. I scarcely ever met with a better companion ; he has 
inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge ; 
but a thorough profligate in principle as in practice, his life stained with every 
vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and indecency. These morals he 
glories in — for shame is a weakness he has long since surmounted. He told 
us himself, that in this time of public dissension he was resolved to make 
his fortune. Upon this noble principle he has connected himself closely with 
Lord Temple and Mr Pitt, commenced a public adversary to Lord Bute, 
whom he abuses weekly in the North Briton, and other political papers in 
which he is concerned. This proved a very debauched day : we drank a good 
deal both after dinner and supper ; and when at last Wilkes had retired. Sir 
Thomas and some others (of whom I was not one) broke into his room, and 
made him drink a bottle of claret in bed. 

October 5. — The review, which lasted about three hours, concluded, as 
usual, with marching by Lord Effingham, by grand divisions. Upon the 
whole, considering the camp had done both the Winchester and the Gosport 
duties all the summer, they behaved very well, and made a fine appearance. 
As they marched by, I had my usual curiosity to count their files. The 
following is my field return : I think it a curiosity ; I am sure it is more exact 
than is commonly made to a reviewing general. 







No. 


of Files. 


No. of Men. 


Establishment. 


Berkshire, 


{ 


Grenadiers, 19 
Battalion, 72 


} 


91 


— 273 


— 560 


W. Essex, 




Grenadiers, 15 
Battalion, 80 


} 


95 


— 285 


— 480 


S. Oldster, 


f 
I 


Grenadiers, 20 
Battalion, 84 


\ 


104 


- 312 


— 600 


N. GlSster, 


{ 


Grenadiers, 13 
Battalion, 52 


] 


65 


— 195 


— 360 


Lancashire, 


/ 
( 


Grenadiers, 20 
Battalion, 88 


} 


108 


— 324 


— 800 


Wiltshire, 


{ 


Grenadiers, 24 
Battalion, 120 


1 


144 


— 432 


— 800 






Total 


[, 


607 


1,821 


3,600 



N.B. — The Gosport detachment from the Lancashire consisted of two 
hundred and fifty men. The Buckinghamshire took the Winchester duty 
that day. 

So that this camp in England, supposed complete, with only one detach- 
ment, had under arms, on the day of the grand review, little more than half 
their establishment. This amazing deficiency (though exemplified in every 
regiment I have seen) is an extraordinary military phoenomenon : what must 
it be upon foreign service ? I doubt whether a nominal army of an hundred 
thousand men often brings fifty into the field. 

Upon our return to Southampton in the evening, we found Sir Thomas 
Worsley. 

October 21. — One of those impulses, which it is neither very easy nor very 
necessary to withstand, drew me from Longinus to a very different subject, 
the Greek Calendar. Last night, when in bed, I was thinking of a disserta- 
tion of M. de la Nauze upon the Roman calendar, which I read last year. 



302 APPENDIX 

This led me to consider what was the Greek, and finding myself very ignorant 
of it, I determined to read a short, but very excellent abstract of Mr. Dod- 
well's book de Cyclis, by the famous Dr. Halley. It is only twenty -five pages ; 
but as I meditated it thoroughly, and verified all the calculations, it was a 
very good morning's work. 

October 28. — I looked over a new Greek Lexicon which I have just received 
from London. It is that of Robert Constantino, Lugdun, 1637. It is a very 
large volume in folio, in two parts, comprising in the whole 1,785 pages. 
After the great Thesaurus, this is esteemed the best Greek Lexicon. It seems 
to be so. Of a variety of words for which I looked, I always found an exact 
definition ; the various senses well distinguished, and properly supported, by 
the best authorities. However, I still prefer the radical method of Scapula 
to this alphabetical one. 

December 11. — I have already given an idea of the Gosport duty ; I shall 
only add a trait which characterises admirably our unthinMng sailors. At a 
time when they knew that they should infallibly be discharged in a few 
weeks, numbers, who had considerable wages due to them, were continually 
jumping over the walls, and risquing the losing of it for a few hours' amuse- 
ment at Portsmouth. 

December 17. — We fotmd old Captain Meard at Arlesford, with the second 
division of the fourteenth. He and all his oflBcers supped with us, and made 
the evening rather a drunken one. 

December 18. — About the same hour our two corps paraded to march off. 
They, an old corps of regulars, who had been two years quiet in Dover Castle. 
"We, part of a young body of militia, two-thirds of our men recruits, of four 
months' standing, two of which they had passed upon very disagreeable duty. 
Every advantage was on their side, and yet our superiority, both as to 
appearance and discipline, was so striking, that the most prejudiced regular 
could not have hesitated a moment. At the end of the town our two com- 
panies separated ; my father's struck off for Petersfield, whilst I continued 
my route to Alton ; into which place I marched my company about noon ; 
two years six months and fifteen days after my first leaving it. I gave the 
men some beer at roll-calling, which they received with great cheerfulness 
and decency. I dined and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with that 
old-fashioned breeding, which is at once so honourable and so troublesome. 

December 23. — Our two companies were disembodied ; mine at Alton, and 
my father's at Beriton. Smith marched them over from Petersfield : they 
fired three volleys, lodged the major's colours, delivered up their arms, 
received their money, partook of a dinner at the major's expense, and then 
separated with great cheerfulness and regularity. Thus ended the militia ; 
I may say ended, since our annual assemblies in May are so very precarious, 
and can be of so little use. However, our Serjeants and drums are still kept 
up, and quartered at the rendezvous of their company, and the adjutant 
remains at Southampton in full pay. 

As this was an extraordinary scene of life, in which I was 'engaged above 
three years and a half from the date of my commission, and above two years 
and a half from the time of our embodying, I cannot take my leave of it 
without some few reflections. When I engaged in it, I was totally ignorant 
of its nature and consequences. I offered, because my father did, without 
ever imagining that we should be called out, till it was too late to retreat 
with honour. Indeed, I believe it happens throughout, that our most 
important actions have been often determined by chance, caprice, or some 
very inadequate motive. After our embodying, many things contributed to 
make me support it with great impatience. Our continual disputes with the 
duke of Bolton ; our unsettled way of life, which hardly allowed me books or 
leisure for study ; and more than all, the disagreeable society in which I was 
forced to live. 

After mentioning my sufferings, I must say something of what I found 



APPENDIX 303 

agreeable. Now it is over, I can make the separation much better than I 
could at the time. 1. The unsettled way of life itself had its advantages. 
The exercise and change of air and of objects amused me, at the same time 
that it fortiiied my health. 2. A new field of knowledge and amusement 
opened itself to me ; that of military affairs, which, both in my studies and 
. travels, will give me e3^es for a new world of things, which before would have 
passed unheeded. Indeed, in that respect I can hardly help wishing our 
battalion had continued another year. "We had got a fine set of new men, 
all our difficulties were over ; we were perfectly well clothed and appointed ; 
and, from the progress our recruits had already made, we could promise our- 
selves that we should be one of the best militia corps by next summer ; a 
circumstance that would have been the more agreeable to me, as I am now 
established the real acting major of the battalion. But what I value most, 
is the knowledge it has given me of mankind in general, and of my own 
country in particular. The general system of our government, the methods 
of our several oflBces, the departments and powers of their respective oflScers, 
our provincial and municipal administration, the views of our several parties, 
the characters, connections, and influence of our principal people, have been 
impressed on my mind, not by vain theory, but by the indelible lessons of 
action and experience. I have made a number of valuable acquaintance, and 
am myself much better known, than (with my reserved character) I should 
have been in ten years, passing regularly my summers at Bei'iton, and my 
winters in London. So that the sum of all is, that I am glad the militia has 
been, and glad that it is no more. 



25. GENIUS (p. 143). 

Dean Barnard, addressing Reynolds, wrote : — 

"Thou say'st not only skill is gained, 
But genius, too, may be obtained. 
By studious imitation ". 

(BoswelVs /oknson, iv., 432). 

Reynolds, in his Third Discourse, speaking of "the gusto gra?ide of the 
Italians, the beaii idial of the French, and the great style, genius, and taste 
among the English," continues: "It is this intellectual dignity, they say, 
that ennobles the painter's art, that lays the line between him and the mere 
mechanic ; and produces those great effects in an instant, which eloquence 
and poetry, by slow and repeated efforts, are scarcely able to attain. . . . 
The student examines his own mind, and perceives there nothing of that 
divine inspiration. . . . He never travelled to Heaven to gather new ideas, 
and he finds himself possessed of no other qualification than what mere com- 
mon observation and a plain understanding can confer. Thus he thinks it 
hopeless to pursue an object which he supposes out of the reach of human 
industry " (Reynolds's Works, ed. 1824, i., 44). 

According to Northcote (Zz/"? of Reynolds, i., 11), "Sir Joshua regarded 
ambition as the cause of eminence, but accident as pointing out the means ". 
This he might have got from Hume as well as from Johnson. "A man's 
genius," wrote Hume, "is always in the beginning of life as much unknown 
to himself as to others. ... A noble emulation is the source of every excel- 
lence " (Hume's Essays, ed. 1770, i., 160). 

Blake attacked Reynolds's Third Discourse. "It is," he wrote, "parti- 
cularly interesting to blockheads, as it endeavours to prove that there is no 
such thing as inspiration, and that any man of a plain understanding may, 
by thieving from others, become a Michael Angelo " (Gilchrist's 5/fl.^e, i., 
261). Blake misrepresents Reynolds, who would have maintained, with 
Johnson, that "the true genius is a mind of large general powers, accident- 



304 APPENDIX 

ally determined to some particular direction" (Johnson's Works, vii., 1). 
"I am persuaded," said Johnson, "that had Sir Isaac Newton applied to 
poetry he would have made a very fine epick poem. I could as easily apply 
to law as to tragick poetry " (Bos well's Johnson, v., 35). (Newton, by the 
way, "being asked his opinion of poetry, quoted a sentiment of Barrow, 
that it was ingenious nonsense" ("Warton's Pope's Works, iii., 177)). Newton, 
writing about his Treatise on the Solar System, said : "If I have done the 
public any service this way, it is due to nothing but industry and patient 
thought" (Bentley's Works, ed. 1836, ii., 203). "I know of no such thing 
a>s genius," said Hogarth; "genius is nothing but labour and diligence" 
(Seward's Biographiana, p. 293). 
Sir Walter Scott, speaking of 



continues :- 



" That secret power by all obeyed," 



" Whether an impulse that has birth 
Soon as the infant wakes on earth, 
One with our feelings and our powers, 
And rather part of us than ours ; 
Or whether fitlier termed the sway 
Of habit, formed in early day ; 
Howe'er derived, its force confest 
Rules with despotic sway the breast " 



(Marmion, Intro, to Canto iii.). 



26. ELVIRA (p. 148). 

Gibbon recorded on Jan. 19, 1763 : "My father and I went to the Rose, in 
the passage of the play-house, where we found Mallet, with about thirty 
friends. We dined together, and went thence into the pit, where we took 
our places in a body, ready to silence all opposition. However, we had no 
occasion to exert ourselves. Notwithstanding the malice of party. Mallet's 
nation [Scotch], connections, and indeed imprudence, we heard nothing but 
applause. I think it was deserved." Gibbon, who had been calling on the 
French ambassador, " undressed for the play " (Misc. Works, \., WJ). 

Elvira was brought out at Drury Lane. ' ' The part of Don Pedro was the 
last new character Gar rick ever acted." According to Davies, he was 
flattered into accepting the play. Mallet received £1,000, as well as a yearly 
pension, from the Marlborough family for writing a Life of the great Duke. 
Not a line of it did he ever write. " ' Do you know, my friend,' he said to 
Garrick, ' that I have found out a pretty snug niche in it for you ? ' 
' Heh ! how ; that for me ! ' said the manager, turning quickly upon him, 
his eyes sparkling with fire. ' How the devil could you bring me into the 
history of Marlborough?' 'That's my business,' rejoined Mallet; 'but 
I tell you I have done it.' 'Well, Mallet, you have the art of surprising 
your friends in the most unexpected manner ; but why won't you now, who 
are so well qualified, write something for the stage ? ' " Elvira was pro- 
duced (Davies s Garrick, ii., 57). Johnson, in his Life of Mallet, tells the same 
story. 

Had Gibbon stayed a few days longer in London he might have seen the 
play interrupted by a riot. " On Jan. 25, a paper was dispersed in the 
taverns and coffee-houses, complaining of the Managers of the Theatres for 
refusing admittance at the end of the third act for half-price. When Mr. 
Holland came in to speak the prologue to Elvira ho was hissed off." Garrick 
could not get a hearing. " The benches wei'e torn up, the glass lustres were 



APPENDIX 305 

broken ; about nine the house was cleared, the money being returned." 
Garrick yielded to the mob {Gent. Mag., 1763, p. 31). The play did not run 
many nights longer, in spite of Mallet's "acquainting him that he had 
received forty cards from persons of distinction, all of whom desired to know 
the reason why his play was stopped" (Davies's Garrick, ii. , 59). "His 
dramas," writes Johnson, "had their day, a short day, and are forgotten " 
(Johnson's Works, viii., 466). 

27. L'ANGLOMANIE (p. 151). 

Voltaire begins a letter to the Gazette littiraire, dated Nov. 14, 1764, sur 
r A nglomanie : " Mille gens, messieurs, s'^l^vent et d^clament contre I'angio- 
manie : j 'ignore ce qu'ils entendent par ce mot. S'ils veulent parler de la 
fureur de travestir en modes ridicules quelques usages utiles, de transformer 
un d^shabill^ commode en un vetement malpropre, de saisir jusqu'i des 
jeux nationaux pour y mettre des grimaces k la place de la gravity, ils 
pourraient avoir raison ; mais si par hasard ces d^clamateurs pr6tendaient 
nous faire un crime du d^sir d'^tudier, d' observer, de philosopher, comme les 
Anglais, ils auraient certainement bien tort" (CEuvres de Voltaire, xliii., 320). 
In 1771 he wrote : " Vous savez que tons les gens de lettres apprennent 
aujourd'hui I'anglais " {ib., Iv., 519). 

Horace "Walpole {Letters, iv., 466) wrote to Gray from Paris on Jan. 25, 
1766: "The generality of the men, and more than the generality, are dull 
and empty. They have taken up gravity, thinking it was philosophy and 
English, and so have acquired nothing in the room of their natural levity and 
cheerfulness. " 

Grimm, who visited England for the first time in 1790, was full of admira- 
tion. He speaks of the well-kept fields, the green hedges, the villages with 
their neat cottages and shops with an air of abundance and wealth ; the 
labouring class better clothed, housed, and fed, and steadier in their work 
than in France. In the inns there is, it is true, a want of napkins, and the 
porter, small beer, and port wine, are not to a Frenchman's taste ; "mais je 
ne connais rien dont on se nourrisse mieux, et dont on se lasse moins que du 
bon beefsteak, des potatoes, du royal plum pudding, et de I'excellent fromage de 
Chester ". London has not nearly so many magnificent buildings as Paris ; 
but it makes up for that by the width, regularity, and cleanliness of its 
streets ; its foot pavements, and the endless succession and variety of its 
shops ; by the general air of comfort, industry, and activity. The Thames 
and the docks, with their thousands and thousands of ships from all parts of 
the world, raise in the mind the noblest idea of the audacity, the power, and 
the success of man. In the midst of the vast population of London there is 
order and tranquillity. In Paris, in a single morning, you are likely to come 
across more confusion, more accidents, and more quarrels than in London in 
a fortnight. Order is kept by a small body of constables. An Englishman 
submits to the law, because he loves the law. He has a well-grounded con- 
fidence in himself. "Chacun dans ce pays, depuis le premier lord jusqu'au 
dernier coachman, parait savoir plus prScis^ment que partout ailleurs what is 
fair (ce qui est juste)/' (Grimm's Mimoires, &c., ed. 1814, vii., 391). 

28. GIBBON'S ASSOCIATES IN PARIS IN 1763 (p. 152). 

{a) Count de Caylus. 

Gibbon wrote to his father on Feb. 24, 1763: "You know how much I 
always built upon the Count de Caylus ; he has not been of the least use to 
me. With great difficulty I have seen him, and that is all. I do not, how- 

20 



306 APPENDIX 

ever, attribute his behaviour to pride, or dislike to me, but solely to the 
man's general character, which seems to me to be a very odd one " (Misc. 
Works, ii., 55). For its oddity see ib., i., 163. 

{b) L'Abbb de la Bletebie. 

According to Grirara. [Mdmoires kistorigues, &c., iv., 227), B16terie, though 
at his death he left more than 20,000 francs, "criait cependant toujours 
misfere ". When out supping one night, rain coming on, his coach fare was 
given him. "II mit les 24 sous dans sa poche, et s'en retourna chez lui k 
pied." See also ante, p. 97. 

[c) L'Abb:^ Bakth:£lemy. 

"L'Abb6 Barth^lemy est fort aimable, et n'a de I'antiquaire qu'une tr^s 
grande Erudition" (Misc. Works, i., 163). 

(d) L'Abb^ Raynal. 

Gibbon wrote of Raynal in 1783 : " His conversation, which might be very 
agreeable, is intolerably loud, peremptory, and insolent ; and you would 
imagine that he alone was the monarch and legislator of the world" (Corres., 
ii., 75). A year earlier Frederick the Great had written of him: "A la 
maniere dont il m'a parl6 de la puissance, des ressources et des richesses de 
tous les peuples du globe, j'ai cru m'entretenir avec la Providence " (Grimm's 
Carres,, v., 390). "There never was such an impertinent and tiresome old 
gossip," wrote Horace "Walpole of him (Letters, vi., 444). Johnson put his 
hands behind his back, when some one brought up Raynal to introduce to 
him (Boswell's Johnson, iv., 435 ; Jokn. Misc., i., 211). Cowper, after read- 
ing aloud to Mrs. Unwin the five volumes of his History of ike Establish- 
ments, &c., of the Etiropeans in the Two Indies, wrote : " He is a true patriot, 
but then the world is his country. ... If he had not found that religion had 
undergone a mixture of artifice, perhaps he would have been a Christian " 
(Southey's Cowper, xv., 44). Romilly, who had read "the eloquent passages 
in his work with delight," records : " But when I came to talk on these sub- 
jects with him, he appeared to me so cold and so indififerent about them, that 
I conceived a very vmfavourable opinion of him " (Life of Romilly, ed. 1840, 
i., 70). For Gibbon's praise of the same book, see The Decline, ii., 391. He 
adds, however, that ' ' the total absence of quotations is the unpardonable 
blemish of his entertaining history" (ib., ii., 312). In this Raynal was not 
singular. " Villaret quotes nobody, according to the last fashion of the 
French writers " (ib., vii., 91). 

(e) L'Abbb Arnauld. 

" II nous est tomb^ entre les mains, depuis peu, une r^ponse de M. I'abb^ 
Arnauld a je ne sais quelle pr6tendue d&onciation de je ne sais quel pr^tendu 
th^ologien, devant je ne sais quel pr^tendu tribunal. Cette r^ponse m'a paru 
tr^s sup6rieure 4 tous les ouvrages pol^miques de I'autre Arnauld" (ffie^z^r^j 
de Voltaire, vii., 78). " L'autre Arnauld was "le grand Arnauld," the 
Jansenist. 

(/) De la Condamine. 

Gibbon recorded in 1764: "I read M. de la Condamine's Journal of his 
Travels in Italy. I was pleased to find the heights of several mountains in 
fathoms, measured by the barometer. They are as follow." He goes on to 
make some ridiculous entries ; placing the Lake of Geneva and the top of the 
Pyrenees at the same height above sea level — 1,410 fathoms. He copies also 



APPENDIX 307 

the heights of Mont Blanc, and the highest of the Andes, though neither had 
been ascended. A few days later he re-examined the Journal, and corrected 
some of these mistakes. The wonder is he ever made them {Misc. Works, 
v., 477, 479). 

(^) Du Clos. 

Gibbon recorded in 1764 of Du Clos's Consideration sur les Mceurs de ce 
Sikcle: " The work is in general good; some chapters treating of the con- 
nection of genius with character are excellent. Du Clos, before he was 
Secretary of the Academy, had been that of the Coffee-house ; where he 
carefully treasured up the conversations of men of wit" {Misc. Works, v., 
472). In a note on Voltaire (Qtuvres, xii., 250) Du Clos is quoted as having 
said, "qu'il ne connaissait rien de plus m6prisable et de plus m^chant que 
la canaille de la litt&ature ". 

{h) De Ste Palaye. 

Horace "Walpole [Letters, iv., 332), writing to Dr. Warton of De Sade's 
Life of Petrarch, continues: "When you read the notes to the second 
volume, you will grow very impatient for Mons. de Ste Palaye' s promised 
history of the Troubadours ' ' . 

[i) De Bougainville. 

Gibbon, on Feb. 23, 1763, mentioned Bougainville as a man "que j'ai 
grande envie de eonnaltre " {Misc. Works, i., 162). He died the following 
summer. Gibbon writes of his unfinished Mimoire sur la Monarchic des 
Mides : "La mort, qui I'a enlev6 ^ la soci6t6 et aux lettres, ne permet plus 
d'esp6rance. Je me propose de suivre ses id^es. Je donnerai quelques coups 
de crayon au tableau imparfait d'un grand maitre. Ce maitre 6tait mon 
ami. Je goiite un triste plaisir dans cette occupation qui me retrace si vive- 
ment tout ce qu'il a €t€, et tout ce qu'il n'est plus " {ib., iii., 58). 

(_/) Cappebonnier. 

Capperonnier was the King's Librarian. Voltaire, in 1768, thanking 
him for a book he had lent him from " la Biblioth^que royale," continues 
{(Euvres, liv., 491): "II a ^t6 d'un grand secours i un pauvre feu historio- 
graphe de France, tel que moi ". Voltaire, who was made "historiographs 
de France " in 1745, was stripped of his office in 1750 {ib., xlviii., 100, 328). 

( k) De Guignes. 

De Guignes was the author of Histoire des Huns. Gibbon, referring to it 
in The Decline, iii., 87, says : "He has skilfully traced the footsteps of the 
Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary". Voltaire {CEuvres, xxiv., 
253) laughs at him "quand il fit descendre les Chinois des Egyptiens ; quand 
11 pr^tendit que I'empereur de la Chine Yu 6tait visiblement le roi d'Egypte 
M&ifes, en changeant nis en u, et me eo-y," &c. 

(/) SUARD. 

Ante, p. 134. 

{rn) Madame Geopfrin. 

" Her house is a very good one ; regular dinners there every Wednesday, 
and the best company of Paris, in men of letters and people of fashion" 
{Misc. Works, ii., 54). " She is an extraordinary woman, with more common 
sense than I almost ever met with. Great quickness in discovering characters, 



308 APPENDIX 

penetration in going to the bottom of them, and a pencil that never fails in a 
likeness— seldom a favourable one " (Walpole's Letters, iv., 466). 

According to D'Haussonville, her reception days were Monday and Wed- 
nesday, and D'Olbach's Thursday and Sunday; while Helv^tius received 
on Tuesday and Madame Necker on Friday {Le Salon de Madame Necker, i., 
121). 

(«) Madame du Boccage. 

She was the lady who, when Johnson visited her, " would needs make tea 
d V Anglaise. The spout of the teapot did not pour freely ; she bade the 
footman blow into it" (Boswell's Johnson, li., 403 ; see also ib., iv., 331, and 
John. Misc., ii., 291). Voltaire complimented her in verse on her imitation 
of Paradise Lost, and called her la Sapho de Normandie (GEuvres, xi., 307 ; 
xii., 342; xlviii., 167). Horace Walpole wrote of it (Letters, ii., 206) : "My 
Lord Chesterfield prefers the copy to the original ; but that is not uncommon 
for him to do, who is the patron of bad authors and bad actors ". 

(o) Hblvetius. 

"M. Helv6tius, the author of the famous book De l' Esprit, has a very 
pretty wife, a hundred thousand livres a year, and one of the best tables in 
Paris. . . . From his heart, his head, and his fortune he is a most valuable 
man" (Misc. Works, ii., 53-4). 

"April 5, 1764. — I was invited by my Lord Mansfield to dine with that 
Helv^tius, but he is a professed patron of atheism, a rascal, and a scoundrel, 
and I would not countenance him " (Walpole's Letters, iv., 217). 

About the time that Gibbon was writing his Memoirs, Burke wrote : " We 
are not the converts of Rousseau ; we are not the disciples of Voltaire ; 
Helv6tius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers ; 
madmen are not our law-givers " (Burke's Works, ed. 1808, v., 166). 

(p) Le Baron d'Olbaoh. 

' ' Le Baron a de 1' esprit et des connaissances, et surtout il donne souvent 
et fort bien a diner" (Misc. Works, i., 162). "The Baron d'Olbach is a man 
of parts and fortune, and has two dinners every week" (ib., ii., 54). "I 
have left off his dinners, as there was no bearing the authors, and philoso- 
phers, and savants, of which he has a pigeon -house full" (Walpole's Letters, 
iv., 449). 

(q) De Foncemagne. 

As to the authenticity of Le Testament politique aitribtii au Cardinal de 
Richelieu, Foncemagne differed from Voltaire, who, in his reply, thus 
describes him (CEuvres, xxv., 367) : " Un acad6micien connu de ses amis par 
la douceur de ses moeurs, et du public par ses lumieres, a 6erit centre mon 
sentiment. Son ouvrage est plein de cette sagesse et de cette politesse que 
son titre annonce." See also ante, p. 199. 



29. GIBBON AMIDST THE RUINS OF THE CAPITOL (p. 167). 

In the last paragraph of The Decline Gibbon writes : "It was among the 
ruins of the Capitol that I first conceived the idea of a work which has 
amused and exercised near twenty years of my life ". 

In a brief essay dated "Rome, 13th December, 1764," he shows what his 
musings were. Writing of " the triumphal show, " he says: "I shall dwell 



APPENDIX 309 

on one circumstance alone, more deserving the attention of a philosopher, 
because by it this institution is honourably distinguished from those vain and 
fatiguing solemnities which create nothing but weariness or contempt. The 
triumph converted the spectators into actors, by showing to them objects 
great, real, and which could not fail to move their affections. . . . The 
ceremonies of religion, when presented to mankind in a venerable garb, 
ought powerfuUj^ to interest their affections ; but their influence cannot be 
completely felt, unless the spectators have a firm faith in the theological 
system on which thej^ are founded ; and unless they also feel in themselves 
that particular disposition of mind which lays it open to religious terrors. 
Such ceremonies, when they are not viewed with respect, arc beheld with the 
contempt excited by the most ridiculous pantomime. In the triumph every 
circumstance was great and interesting. To receive its full impression, it 
was enough to be a man and a Roman. With the eyes of citizens the spec- 
tators saw the image, or rather the reality, of the public glory. The 
treasures which were carried in procession, the most precious monuments of 
art, the bloody spoils of the enemy, exhibited a faithful picture of the war, 
and illustrated the importance of the conquest. A silent but forcible 
language instructed the Romans in the exploits and valour of their country- 
men : symbols chosen with taste showed to them the cities, rivers, 
mountains, the scenes of their national enterprise, and even the gods of their 
prostrate enemies subdued under the majesty of Capitoline Jupiter" [Misc. 
Works, iv., 394). 

In the conclusion of The Decline he tells how "the footsteps of heroes, 
the relics, not of superstition but of empire, are devoutly visited by a new 
race of pilgrims from the remote, and once savage, countries of the North ' ' . 
In an earlier passage, ib., iv., 74, after describing St. Simeon Stylites among 
' ' the monastic saints who excite only the contempt and pity of a philoso- 
pher, ' ' whose lives had been written by Theodoret, Gibbon continues : "If 
it be possible to measure the interval between the johilosophic writings of 
Cicero and the sacred legend of Theodoret, between the character of Cato 
and that of Simeon, we may appreciate the memorable revolution which was 
accomplished in the Roman Empire within a period of five hundred years ". 
His scorn, though veiled, is everywhere to be seen. "Writing of the triumph of 
Heraclius over the Persians in a.d. 628, he says : "In the recovery of the 
standards and prisoners which had fallen into the hands of the Persians, the 
emperor imitated the example of Augustus ; their care of the national dignity 
was celebrated by the poets of the times, but the decay of genius may be 
measured by the distance between Horace and George of Pisidia : the sub- 
jects and brethren of Heraclius were redeemed from persecution, slavery, 
and exile ; but instead of the Roman eagles, the true wood of the cross was 
restored to the importunate demands of the successor of Constantine" (ib., 
v., 93). 

See also Auto., p. 263, for "the contemptuous look he darted on the 
stately monuments of superstition" at Paris. 

Sainte-Beuve, after quoting the passage in the text, continues: " On le 
voit, si une id^e auguste et grandiose preside k 1' inspiration de Gibbon, 
I'intention 6pigrammatique est k c6t6 : il con9oit I'ancien ordre romain, il le 
revere, il 1' admire ; mais cet ordre non moins raerveilleux qui lui a succ^d^ 
avec les siecles, ce pouvoir spirituel ininterrompu des vieillards et des 
pontifes, cette politique qui sut etre tour k tour intr^pide, imp^rieuse et 
superbe, et le plus souvent prudente, il ne lui rendra pas justice, il n'y 
entrera pas : et de temps en temps, dans la continuity de sa grave Histoire, on 
croira entendre revenir comme par contraste ce chant de vepres du premier 
jour, cette impression d^nigrante qu'il ramenera a la sourdine" {Causeries, 
viii., 452). 



310 APPENDIX 



30. HUME ON GIBBON'S COMPOSING IN FEENCH (p. 172). 

Mr. Hume seems to have had a different opinion of this work. 
''^ From Mr. Hume to Mr. Gibbon. 
"Sib, 
"It is but a few days since M. Deyverdun put your manuscript into my 
hands, and I have perused it with great pleasure and satisfaction. I have only 
one objection, derived from the language in which it is written. Why do you 
compose in French, and carry faggots into the wood, as Horace says with 
regard to the Romans who wrote in Greek? \Saf., i., x., 34.] I grant that 
you have a like motive to those Romans, and adopt a language much more 
generally diffused than your native tongue : but have you not remarked the 
fate of those two ancient languages in following ages ? The Latin, though 
then less celebrated, and confined to more narrow limits, has in some measure 
outlived the Greek, and is now more generally understood by men of letters. 
Let the French, therefore, triumph in the present diffusion of their tongue. 
Our solid and increasing establishments in America, where we need less 
dread the inundation of Barbarians, promise a superior stability and duration 
to the English language. 

" Your use of the French tongue has also led you into a style more poetical 
and figurative, and more highly coloured, than our language seems to admit 
of in historical productions ; for such is the practice of French writers, par- 
ticiilarly the more recent ones, who illuminate their pictures more than 
custom will permit us. On the whole, your History, in my opinion, is 
written with spirit and judgment ; and I exhort you very earnestly to con- 
tinue it. The objections that occurred to me on reading it, were so frivolous, 
that I shall not trouble you with them, and should, I believe, have a difficulty 
to recollect them. 

' ' I am, with great esteem, 
"Sm, 
" Your most obedient 

' ' and most humble servant, 

"David Hume. 
' ' London, 

"24th of Oct., 1767." 

(Footnote by Lord Sheffield. ) 

Pope wrote in 1716 : "They [the ancients] wi'it in languages that became 
universal and everlasting, while ours are extremely limited both in extent 
and duration. A mighty foundation for oiir pride ! when the utmost we can 
hope is but to be read in one island, and to be thrown aside at the end of one 
age" (Warton's Pope's Works, ed., 1822, i., 64). 

Hume lamented the need he was under of writing in English. In 1769 he 
wrote: "It has been my misfortune to write in the language of the most 
stupid and factious barbarians in the world " {Letters to Strahan, p. 113). 

' ' We may reflect with some pleasure, ' ' wrote Gibbon, ' ' that the English 
language will probably be diffused over an immense and populous continent" 
{The Decline, iv., 166). 



31. WARBURTON'S HYPOTHESIS (p. 179). 

"None but the initiated could reveal the secret of the mysteries ; and the 
initiated could not reveal it without violating the laws as well of honour as 
of religion. I sincerely acquit the Bishop of Gloucester of any design ; yet so 
unfortunate is his system, that it represents a most virtuous and elegant 



APPENDIX 311 

poet as equally devoid of taste and of common honesty. . . . His lordship 
maintains that after the compliment of a formal apology, 

' Sit mihi fas audita loqui ' [vi., 266], 

Virgil lays open the whole secret of the mysteries under the thin veil of an 
allegory, which could deceive none but the most careless readers. An 
apology ! an allegory ! Such artifices might perhaps have saved him from 
the sentence of the Areopagus, had some zealous or interested priest 
denoiiuced him to the court, as guilty of publishing A Blasphemous Poem. 
But the laws of honour are more rigid, and yet more liberal, than those of 
civil tribunals. Sense, not words, is considered ; and guilt is aggravated, not 
protected, by artful evasions. Virgil would still have incurred the severe 
censure of a contemporary, who was himself a man of very little religion. 

' Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum 
Vuigarit arcanse, sub iisdem 
Sit trabibus, fragilemque mecum 
Solvat phaselum.' 

Nor can I easily persuade myself that the ingenuous mind of Virgil could have 
deserved this excommunication" [Misc. Works, iv., 502). 

There is an allusion in this passage which, though now obscure, would 
have been understood by every reader. Seven years earlier the Bishop had 
complained to the House of Lords of a breach of privilege by John Wilkes, in 
publishing a blasphemous and obscene poem with notes bearing the name of 
Dr. Warburton [Pari. Hist, xv., 1346). 

The quotation from Horace (Odes, ili., 2, 26) is rendered by Francis : — 

" And they who mysteries reveal 
Beneath my roof shall never live. 
Shall never hoist with me the doubtful sail". 



32. THE LITERARY CLUB (p. 189). 

From the mixed, though polite, company of Boodle's, White's, and 
Brooks's, I must honourably distinguish a weekly society, which was insti- 
tuted in the year 1764, and which still continues to flourish, under the title 
of the Literary Club (Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 415 ; Boswell's Tour to 
the Hebrides, p. 97 {S>osvfe\Y & Johnson, i., 477; v., 109]). The names of Dr. 
Johnson, Mr. Burke, Mr. Topham Beauclerc, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, 
Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Colman, Sir William Jones, Dr. Percy, Mr. Fox, 
Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Adam Smith, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Dunning, Sir Joseph 
Banks, Dr. Warton, and his brother, Mr. Thomas Warton, Dr. Burney, &c. , 
form a large and luminous constellation of British stars. (Footnote by Gibbon. ) 

Boswell, whose luminosity was perhaps invisible to Gibbon, is passed over 
in this list. In a note in The Tour to the Hebrides, which Gibbon had read, 
he describes how Paley " shewed in decent but strong terms, the unfairness 
of the indirect attempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious 
principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer of one whom he 
politely calls 'an eloquent historian " (Boswell's Johnson, v., 203). In the 
Life of Johnson (iv., 73), also published in Gibbon's lifetime, Boswell writes : 
" Johnson certainly was vain of the society of ladies, and could make himself 
very agreeable to them, when he chose it ; Sir Joshua Reynolds agreed with 
me that he could. Mr. Gibbon, with his usual sneer, controverted it, perhaps 
in resentment of Johnson's having talked with some disgust of his ugliness, 
which one would think Vk philosopher would not mind." 



312 APPENDIX 

In the proof-sheet, after "Mr. Gibbon," Boswell had added, "the 
historical writer and to me offensive sneerer at what I hold sacred," but he 
struck it out. In the proof of the index was the entry, "Gribbon, the his- 
torian" ; it was altered into "Gibbon, Edward, Esq.". So early as 1776 he 
showed his dislike of him. In that year he wrote to Temple: "I don't 
know but you have spoken too highly of Gibbon's book ; the Dean of Derry, 
who is of our Club as well as Gibbon, talks of answering it. I think it is 
right that as fast as infidel wasps or venomous insects, whether creeping or 
flying, are hatched, they should be crushed. Murphy says he has read thirty 
pages of Smith's Wealth, but says he shall read no more : Smith too is now 
of our Club. It has lost its select merit." In 1779 Boswell wrote : "Gibbon 
is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our literary club to me " 
{Letters of Boswell, pp. 232, 242). Gibbon was elected a member on March 4, 
1774 (Croker's Boswell, ed. 1835, ii., 326). A year later, at one of the Club 
dinners, the talk fell on bears. " 'We are told,' said Johnson, 'that the 
black bear is innocent ; but I should not like to trust myself with him. ' Mr. 
Gibbon muttered, in a low tone of voice, ' I should not like to trust mj^self 
with you '. This piece of sarcastic pleasantry was a prudent resolution, if 
applied to a competition of abilities " (Boswell' s /oknson, ii., 348). 

Gibbon had at Lausanne an engraving, by Hall, of Reynolds's portrait of 
Johnson (Read's I/isf. Studies, ii., 479). 

In the first three volumes (quarto) of TAe Decline, published in .Johnson's 
lifetime, his name is only once mentioned. "Dr. Johnson affirms that /ew 
English words are of British extraction. Mr. Whitaker, who understands 
the British language, has discovered more than three thousand'''' (iv., 153). 
He is perhaps aimed at in vol. iii. , p. 237, where the quotation from 
Claudian — 

' ' Nunquam libertas gratior exstat 
Quam sub rege pio" 

is introduced as ' ' the famous sentence so familiar to the friends of despot- 
ism". It was the motto to Johnson's Political Tracts, published in 1776. It 
was the motto also to Filmer's Patriarcha, and to Dryden's History of the 
league. 

In the last half of The Decline Johnson is attacked in the following notes : 
" If the reader will turn to the first scene of the first part of Henry IV., he 
wiU see in the text of Shakespeare the natural feelings of enthusiasm ; and in 
the notes of Dr. Johnson the workings of a bigoted, though vigorous, mind, 
greedy of every pretence to hate and persecute those who dissent from his 
creed " (vi., 266). Johnson's note (there is but one) is as follows : "The law- 
fulness and justice of the holy wars have been much disputed, but perhaps 
there is a principle on which the question may be easily determined. If it be 
part of the religion of the Mahometans to extirpate by the sword all other 
religions, it is, by the law of self-defence, lawful for men of every other 
religion, and for Christians among others, to make war iipon Mahometans, 
simply as Mahometans, as men obliged by their own principles to make war 
upon Christians, and only lying in wait till opportunity shall promise them 
success." 

In The Ravibler, No. 122, Johnson says of English historians : "None of 
our writers can, in my opinion, justly contest the superiority of KnoUes, who, 
in his history of the Turks, has displayed all the excellencies that narration 
can admit ". On this Gibbon remarks : "In one of the Ramblers, Dr. John.son 
praises KnoUes as the first of historians, unhappy only in the choice of his 
subject. Yet I much doubt whether a partial and verbose compilation from 
Latin writers, thirteen hundred folio pages of speeches and battles, can either 
instruct or amuse an enlightened age, which requires from the historian some 
tincture of philosophy and criticism ' ' ( The Decline, vii. , 24). For England's 
barrenness of historians when Johnson wrote see ante, p. 122. "All the 



APPENDIX 313 

colouring, all the philosophy of history," he later on said, "is conjecture" 
(BosweW s foknson, ii., 365). 

Gibbon, speaking of Mahomet II., says : " His menaces were expressed in 
the Oriental style, that the fugitives and deserters, had they the wings of a 
bird, should not escape from his inexorable justice ". In a note he goes out 
of the way to attack " the extravagance of the rant " in a passage in John- 
son's /re«^, where "Mahomet's passion soars above sense and reason" (Tke 
Decline, vii., 187). 

On the other hand, he quotes with approval four lines from the same play 
{ib., vii., 171). See also ib., vi., 243, for some words in a "sublime inscrip- 
tion" at which "a critique of high renown (the late Dr. Johnson) might 
cavil ". I do not believe that Gibbon would have ventured to publish these 
notes when Johnson was living. He was one of those who signed the Round 
Robin to Johnson, that day at Reynolds's table, when "the question was 
who should have the courage to propose" to the Doctor the alterations in 
Goldsmith's epitaph (BosweU's /isA/^j'ow, iii. , 83). 

He mentioned the Club to Garrick in a letter written from Paris on Aug. 
14, 1777 : " At this time of year the society of the Turk's-head can no 
longer be addressed as a corporate body, and most of the individual members 
are probably dispersed : Adam Smith in Scotland ; Burke in the shades of 
Beaconsfield ; Fox, the Lord or the devil knows where, &c. Be so good as to 
salute in my name those friends who may fall in your way. Assure Sir 
Joshua, in particular, that I have not lost my relish for manly conversation 
and the society of the brown table " {Garrick Corres., ii., 256). 

Tennyson, who was elected a member of the club in 1865, was told by the 
Duke of Argyll that ' ' the form of intimation was drawn up as a joke by 
Gibbon, and has been adhered to ever since". It is as follows: " I have to 
intimate to you that you have had the honour of being elected a member of 
'The Club' ". Tennyson had written previously that he had never heard of 
" The Club " {Life of Tennyson, ii. , 20). For the elections of Macaulay and 
Grote see Johnsonian Miscellanies, i., 229. 

If Gibbon in this jocular intimation described the club as "The Club," 
we find him in the above note calling it "The Literary Club," as Boswell 
also often called it (Boswell' s Johnson, i., 477 ; iv., 326 ; v., 109, n. 5). 

Gibbon described "authors, managers, &c.," as " good company to know, 
but not to live with ' ' ( Corres. , i. , 201). 



33. LISKEARD (p. 191). 

Gibbon was elected member for Liskeard in the autumn of 1774. He had 
visited Eliot at Port Eliot in Sept., 1773. "Our ci^al landlord," he wrote, 
"possesses neither a pack of hounds, nor a stable of running horses, nor a 
large farm, nor a good library" {Corres., i., 194). Miss Burney, in 1781, 
described Eliot as "a most agreeable, lively, and very clever man" (Mme. 
D'Arblay's Diary, ed. 1842, ii., 13). 

Jeremy Bentham wrote in August, 1781: "Eliot is knight of the shire 
[member of parliament for the county], and puts in seven borough members 
for Cornwall" (Bentham's Works, x., 97). 

Liskeard, or Leskeard as it was often written, was distinguished by many 
eminent representatives — Sir Edward Coke in the seventeenth century ; 
Gibbon in the eighteenth ; William Huskisson, Charles BuUer, Bernal 
Osborne, Edward Horsman ("the superior person of the House of Com- 
mons"), and Leonard H. Com-tney. Philip Stanhope, to whom Lord 
Chesterfield wrote his Letters, was member from 1754 to 1761. ' ' Mr. Eliot, ' ' 
Chesterfield wrote {Letters, iv. , 58), "has, in the most friendly manner 
imaginable, fiixed you at his own borough of Liskeard, where you will be 
elected, jointly with him, without the least opposition or difficulty." Eliot, 



314 APPENDIX 

however, was elected at St. Germains. From 1768 to 1784 Samuel Salt was 
one of the members, that old Bencher of the Inner Temple "of pensive 
gentility, ' ' who lives in the Essays of Elia. He must have been accounted 
worthy even of Liskeard, for " it was incredible what repute for talents he 
enjoyed by the mere trick of gravity ". 

By the last Reform Bill this interesting borough was lost in one of the 
county divisions of Cornwall. It surely, and not Bodmin, should have given 
the name to the district. Who cares for Bodmin ? For an account of this 
ancient borough, see W. P. Courtney's Parliamentary Representatives of 
Cornwall to 1832, p. 251. 

34. GIBBON'S "SILENT AND SINCERE VOTES" (p. 191). 

"We may well be astonished at the word "perhaps" in the text, when 
these "silent and sincere votes" helped to set England at war, not only 
with her thirteen colonies, but also with the three chief naval powers _of the 
Continent of Europe — France, Spain, and Holland. 

According to Gibbon's own estimate {The Decline, i., 42) it was a struggle 
between eight millions of people on one side and thirty-two millions on the 
other side. There were certainly more than 8,000,000 in the British Isles. 
In 1801 there were nearly 11,000,000 in Great Britain alone [Penny Cyclo., 
xi., 414). The population of the other countries was probably under-esti- 
mated also, so that the disproportion of the opposing powers may be correctly 
given. Moreover, the eight millions were not united. Ireland was dis- 
affected — Protestants as well as Catholics — and in 1779 a rebellion was on the 
point of breaking out. So incredibly weak was the Government that for some 
days in June, 1780, London was scared by a mob which burnt down the very 
prisons. Of the Ministry Johnson said, " such a bunch of imbecility never 
disgraced a country" (Boswell's/C/^^zjow, iv., 139). He was one of the least 
despondent of men so far as the outside world was concerned. Nevertheless, 
on Aug. 4, 1782, he wrote : "Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has 
declined so much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking" [Letters of 
Johnson, ii., 264). On Jan. 21, 1783, he wrote : " I am afraid of a civil war " 
\ib., p. 286). The National Debt was raised by the. war from 129 to 268 
millions [Penny Cyclo., xvi., 100). At present it amounts to £15 a head 
(Whitaker's Almanack, 1899, p. 185). In these few years of warfare, taking 
Gibbon's estimate of population as correct, it was increased by £16 a head. 

He might have learnt wisdom from his friend David Hume, who wrote on 
Oct. 26, 1775 : " Arbitrary power can extend its oppressive arm to the Anti- 
podes ; but a limited government can never long be upheld at a distance, 
even where no disgusts have intervened ; much less where such violent 
animosities have taken place. We must therefore annul all the charters ; 
abolish every democratical power in every colony ; repeal the Habeas Corpus 
Act with regard to them ; invest every governor with full discretionary or 
arbitrary powers ; confiscate the estates of all the chief planters, and hang 
three-fourths of their clergy. To execute such acts of destructive violence 
twenty thousand men will not be sufficient ; nor thirty thousand to maintain 
them, in so wide and disjointed a territory. And who are to pay so great an 
army ? The Colonists cannot at any time, much less after reducing them to 
such a state of desolation : we ought not, and ii\deed cannot, in the over- 
loaded, or rather overwhelmed and totally ruined state of our finances. Let 
us therefore lay aside all anger, shake hands and part friends. Or, if we 
retain any anger, let it only be against ourselves for our past folly ; and 
against that wicked madman, Pitt, who has reduced us to our present con- 
dition. Dixi" [Letters of Hu7ne to Strahan, p. 289). 

On April 25, 1781, Horace Walpole wrote [Letters, viii., 30) : "Unfortun- 
ately Dr. Franklin was a truer politician, when he said he would furnish Mr. 



APPENDIX 315 

Gibbon with materials for writing the History of the Decline of the British 
Empire ' ' . 

The younger Pitt on June 12, 1781, described the war as " most accursed, 
wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust, and diabolical" (Stanhope's 
Pitt, ed. 1861, i., 61). 

In The Decline, vi., 408, Gibbon wrote justly of war: "In the miserable 
account of war the gain is never equivalent to the loss, the pleasure to the 
pain ". In another passage, in which he describes the seven appearances of a 
comet at intervals of 575 years, he perhaps shows how little he foresaw the 
rapid advance of America. " At the eighth period, in the year 2255, their 
calculations may perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some future 
capital in the Siberian or American wilderness" [ib., iv. , 434). See post, 
p. 324, for doubts cast on Gibbon's sincerity. 



35. THE PUBLICATION OF THE DECLINE AND FALL (p. 195). 

The book was published on Feb. 17, 1776 [Corres., i., 279). " The volume," 
Gibbon wrote, ' ' a handsome quarto, costs one guinea unbound ; it sold, 
according to the expression of the piiblisher, like a threepenny pamphlet on 
the affairs of the day " (Read's Hist. Studies, ii., 387). The day after publi- 
cation Horace "Walpole wrote [Letters, vS.., 310) : "Lo, there is just appeared 
a truly classic work ; a history, not majestic like Livy, nor compressed like 
Tacitus ; not stamped with character like Clarendon ; perhaps not so deep as 
Robertson's Scotland, but a thousand degrees above his Charles ; not pointed 
like Voltaire, but as accurate as he is inexact ; modest as he is tranchant, and 
sly as Montesquieu, without being so recherche. The style is as smooth as a 
Flemish picture, and the muscles are concealed and only for natural uses, not 
exaggerated like Michael Angelo's to show the painter's skill in anatomy ; 
nor composed of the limbs of clowns of different nations like Dr. Johnson's 
heterogeneous monsters." 

By March 26 1,000 copies were sold. Of the second edition of 1,500 copies, 
published on June 3, 700 were gone by June 6. In March, 1777, a third 
edition, also in qiiarto, of 1,000 copies, was printing [Corres., i., 280, 285, 304). 
The estimated profit on this edition was £490, of which Gibbon's two-third 
share was £326 13s. 4d. [Misc. Works, ii. , 167). The second half of the book 
would be worth, he estimated, £3,000 [Corres., ii., 126). I infer that it pro- 
duced £4,000 ; for Lord Sheffield, in publishing Gibbon's letter, changed £3,000 
into " about £4,000 " [Misc. Works, il, 377). 

For the copyright of Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works John Murray, in 1812, 
paid Lord Sheffield, as the historian's executor, £1,000 [Memoirs of John 
Murray, i., 236). 



36. OSSIAN (p. 197). 

" Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these Highland traditions, 
nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most ingenious researches of modern 
criticism" [The Decline, i., 128). 

" Ossian, the son of Fingal, is said to have disputed in his extreme old 
age with one of the foreign missionaries, and the dispute is still extant in 
verse, and in the Erse language. See Mr. Macpherson's Dissertations on the 
Antiquity of Ossian' s Poems, p. 10" [ib., ii., 64). 

In spite of Hume's warning, we find Gibbon writing in a later volume : 
" In the dark and doubtful paths of Caledonian antiqtiity I have chosen for 
my giiides two learned and ingenious Highlanders". One of the two was 
James Macpherson, to whose History of Great Britain he refers [ib., iii., 40). 



316 APPENDIX 

Ossian Gibbon describes as " a conjectiiral supplement to the Erse poetry ' 
(ib., p. 43). In the text he speaks of "the generous humanity which seems 
to inspire the songs of Ossian " [ib., p. 44). In vi., 230, he seems to sneer at 
Ossian, where, after quoting a bombastic translation from Dow's History of 
Hindosian, he adds : "I suspect that by some odd fatality the style of 
Ferishta has been improved by that of Ossian ". 

It is not impossible that Gibbon wished to keep well with Macpherson, 
who, if we can trust what Horace Walpole wrote in February, 1776, ' ' had a 
pension of £600 a year from the Court to supervise the newspapers". In 
1781 this pension was £800 [Journal of the Reign of George III., ii. , 17, 483 ; 
see also The Rolliad a7id Probationary Odes, ed. 1799, p. 458). 

Hume at first believed in the poems of Ossian ; though after ' ' often hear- 
ing them totally rejected with disdain and indignation, as a palpable and 
most impudent forgery," by many of "the men of letters in London," he 
too rejected them [Letters to Strahan, pp. 35-38). A year before Gibbon 
quoted Ossiaii, Johnson, in his Jo7ir7iey to the Western Islands, had exposed 
the fraiid. "If we know little of the ancient Highlanders, " he wrote, "let 
us not fill the vacuity witli Ossian. If we have not searched the Magel- 
lanick regions, let us, however, forbear to people them with Patagons " 
(Johnson's Works, ix., 116 ; see also Boswell' s /o/^^^jwz, ii., 297-303, 309 ; iv., 
183). 



37. FRENCH SOCIETY (p. 199). 

Gibbon wrote from Paris in 1763 : " We may say what we please of the 
frivolity of the French, but I do assure you that in a fortnight passed at Paris 
I have heard more conversation worth remembering, and seen more men of 
letters among the people of fashion, than I had done in two or three winters 
in London" [Corres., i., 29). 

Johnson, who spent some weeks in Paris in the autumn of 1775, but who 
was only ' ' just beginning to creep into acquaintance " when he left, said on 
April 9, 1778, at Reynolds's table, in Gibbon's presence: "I question if in 
Paris such a company as is sitting round this table could be got together in 
less than half a year " (Boswell's Johnson, ii., 401 ; iii., 253). 

Miss Edgeworth, who, in more than one visit to Paris, had seen some of 
the best French society, wi-ote in 1822: "The great variety of society in 
London, and the solidity of the sense and information to be gathered from 
conversation, strike me as far superior to Parisian society " [Life and Letters 
of Maria Edgeworth, ii., 77). 

Mme. du Deflfand thus described Gibbon on May 27, 1777 : " Je lui crois 
beaucoup d'esprit, sa conversation est facile, et forte de choses, comme disait 
Fontenelle " . After reading some of the translation of The Decline, she 
continued : " Je trouve I'auteur assez aimable, mais il a, si je ne me trompe, 
une grande ambition de c616brit6, il brigue h. force ouverte la faveur de nos 
beaux esprits, et il me parait qu'il se trompe souvent aux jugemens qu'il en 
porte ; dans la conversation il veut briller et prendre le ton qu' il croit le 
notre, et il y r^ussit assez bien". On Sept. 2l she wrote : "M. Gibbon a ici 
le plus grand succes, on se I'arrache, il se conduit trfes bien, et sans avoir, je 
crois, autant d'esprit que feu M. Hume, il ne tombe pas dans les memes 
ridicules. ... II se comjjorte avec tout le monde d'une maniere qui ne 
donne point de prise aux ridicules ; ce qui est fort difficile k ^viter dans les 
soci^t^s qu'il fr^quente." On Oct. 26 she added : " II fait trop de cas de nos 
agr^mens, trop de d^sir de les acqu6rir ; j'ai toujours eu sur le bout de la langue 
de lui dire : ne vous tourmentez pas, vous m^ritez I'honneur d'etre Fran9ais 
(Leitres de La Marquise die Deffand d Monsieur Walpole, London, 1810, iii., 
265, 287, 295, 301). 



APPENDIX 317 

38. L'ABBE DE MABLY (p. 199). 

{!•) 

Of the voluminous writings of the Abb6 de Mably (see his Eloge by the 
Abb6 Brizard), the Principes du divit public de C Europe, and the first part of 
the Observations sur PHistoire de France, may be deservedly praised ; and 
even the Maniire dUcrire VHistoire contains several useful precepts and 
judicious remarks. Mably was a lover of virtue and freedom ; but his virtue 
was austere, and his freedom was impatient of an equal. Kings, magistrates, 
laobles, and successful writers were the objects of his contempt, or hatred, or 
envy ; but his illiberal abuse of Voltaire, Hume, Buffon, the Abb6 Raynal, 
Dr. Robertson, and tutti quanti can be injurious only to himself (Footnote by 

Gibbon praises him in The Decliiie : " The brilliant imagination of Montes- 
quieu is corrected by the dry cold reason of the Abb6 de Mably " (i. , 
227). "His accurate distinction of iimes gives him a merit to which even 
Montesquieu is a stranger" (ib., iv., 131). In an early Essay entitled Du 
Gouvernement Fdodal, he says of these two writers : "Ces hommes c^lfebres 
ont ouvert la carri^re ; je les suis en tremblant " [Misc. Works, iii., 183). A 
little later he wrote of Mably that he " had never been able to discover in his 
works anything but common-place " (ib., v. , 406). To Dr. Robertson he wrote 
in 1783 : ' ' The Abb6 appears to hate, and affects to despise everj^ writer of 
his own times who has been well received by the public (Stewart's Robert- 
son, p. 365 ; see also ante, p. 224, ?i.). 

Voltaire was described by him as " un homme qui ne voyait pas au bout 
de son nez" {Mimoires, b'c, de Grimm, v., 412). 

(II.) 

"Est-il rien de plus fastidieux (says the polite Censor) qu'un M. Guibbon, 
qui, dans son 6ternelle Histoire des Empereurs Romains, suspend i chaque 
instant son insipide et lente narration, pour vous expliquer la cause [les 
causes] des faits que vous allez lire?" {Manitre d'icrire VHistoire, p. 184; 
see another passage, p. 280. ) Yet I am indebted to the Abb6 de Mably for 
two such advocates as the Anonymous French Critic and my friend Mr. 
Hayley (Hayley's Works, 8vo edit., vol. ii., pp. 261-263) (Footnote by Gibbon). 

The "other passage" is as follows: "Vous voyez des historiens, par 
exemple M. Guibbon, qui s'empStrent dans leur sujet, ne savent ni I'entamer 
ni le finir, et tournent, pour ainsi dire, toujours sur eux-memes ". 

For Hayley see ante, pp. 180, 230. Gibbon was to have a far greater ad- 
vocate than this poetaster. Sainte-Beuve thus concludes his criticism of the 
Essai sur l' Etude de la Littirature {ante, p. 127): "En un mot on trouve 
partout dans cet Essai I'avant-goftt de cet esprit de critique qui sera tout 
I'oppos^ de la m6thode roide et tranchante d'un Mably " [Causeries, viii., 448). 



39. GIBBON'S ANTAGONISTS— DA VIES, CHELSUM, WATSON, 
APTHORPE, TAYLOR, MILNER, PRIESTLEY, AND WHITE (p. 202). 

{a) Henry Edwaed Davies. 

He published in 1778, An Examination of the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters 
of Mr. Gibbon^ s History of the Decline, ^c. , in which his View of the progress of 
the Christian religion is shewn to be founded on the mis7'eprese?itation of the 
authors he cites, and . . . instances of his inaccuracy and plagiarism are pro- 
duced. Davies was only one-and-twenty when he attacked Gibbon. He 
became Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, and died in 1784. Of the 



818 APPENDIX 

" royal pension " which Gibbon " enjoyed the pleasure of giving to him," I 
am informed that "no trace can be found in spite of an exhaustive research 
in the Treasury Records ". 

(i) Db. James Chblsum. 

He published in 1776 Reynarks on the two last chapters of Mr. Gibbon's 
History, &c. "Dr. Chelsum," Gibbon wrote, "is unwilling that the world 
should forget that he was the first who sounded to arms, that he was the first 
who furnished the antidote to the poison " (Afwc. PFor/^5, iv. , 602). If "poor 
Chelsum was neglected," nevertheless he had a fair share of the good things 
of the Church. According to the Did. Nat. Biog. , he held three benefices in 
as many counties, and, moreover, was chaplain to two Bishops and was one of 
the Preachers at "Whitehall. 

(c) Dr. Richa-bd "Watson. 

He published in 1776 An Apology for Christianity in a Series of Letters to 
Edward Gibbon, Esq. In 1782 he was made Bishop of LlandaflE on the recom- 
mendation of Lord Shelburne, " who (writes "Watson) had erroneously enter- 
tained the opinion that I was a warm, and might become an useful partisan " 
{Life of Watson, ed. 1818, i., 153). "My answer to Gibbon," he says, "had 
a great run" (ib., p. 98). Gibbon described it as "civil, but too dull to 
deserve notice" (Corres., i., 295). For "Watson's friendly correspondence 
with him see Afisc. Works, ii., 180, 227- In The Decline, vi., 10, the Bishop's 
Chemical Essays are styled " a classic book ". For his neglect of his diocese, 
see John. Misc., ii., 199. 

Not only Davies, but also his allies in this attack, ' ' the two confederate 
Doctors," Chelsum and Randolph, were of Oxford. " Oppressed with the 
same yoke, covered with the same trappings, they heavily move along, 
perhaps not with an equal pace, in the same beaten track of prejudice and 
preferment" {Misc. Works, iv., 603). To Oxford also belonged Dr. "White. 
This, no doubt, increased Gibbon's dislike of that university. "V\'"atson be- 
longed to Cambridge. "There is much less difference," Gibbon wrote, 
" between the smoothness of the Ionic and the roughness of the Doric dialect 
than may be found between the polished style of Dr. Watson and the coarse 
language of Mr. Davies, Dr. Chelsum, or Dr. Randolph " {Misc. Works, 
iv., 602). 

{d) Db. East Apthobpe. 

He was the son of a merchant of Boston, Massachusetts, and was Vicar of 
Croydon. "Early in 1778 he published Letters on the Prevalence of 
Christianity before its Civil Establishment ; with Observations on the late 
History of the Decline of the Roman Empi?-e. In February of the same year 
he was collated by Archbishop Cornv/allis to the rectory of St. Mary-le-Bow " 
(Nichols's Lit. Anec, iii., 94 ; see Misc. Works, iv., 596). 

{e) Henby Taylor. 

The stupendous title, Thoughts on the Catises of the Grand Afostacy, at 
first agitated my nerves, till I discovered that it was the apostacy of the whole 
church, since the Council of Nice, from Mr. Taylor's private religion. His 
book is a thorough mixture of high enthusiasm and low bufifoonery, and the 
Millennium is a fundamental article of his creed (Footnote by Gibbon). 

He was Rector of Crawley and "Vicar of Portsmouth. In 1781 he published 
Thoughts on the Causes of the Grand Afostacy, with Reflections and Observa- 
tions on the X Vth Chapter of Mr. Gibbon's History, &c. 



APPENDIX 319 

(/) Joseph Milneb. 

From his grammar school at Kingston-upon-Hull, Mr. Joseph Milner 
pronounces an anathema against all rational religion. His faith is a divine 
taste, a spiritual inspiration ; his church is a mystic and invisible body ; the 
natural Christians, such as Mr. Locke, who believe and interjiret the Scriptures, 
are, in his judgment, no better than profane infidels (Footnote by Gibbon). 

He published in 1781 Gibbon s Account of Christianity considered ; together 
with some Strictures on Httme's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. " On 
the margin of the passage in Milner's History of the Church, where Basil says 
of Gregory Thaumaturgus (in whose miraculous powers Milner devoutly 
believed), ' He never allowed himself to call his Brother fool, ' Macaulay 
wrote, ' He never knew such a fool as Milner then ' " (Trevelyan's Macaulay, 
ed. 1877, ii., 285). 

[g) Db. Joseph Peiestley. 

He published in 1782 An History of the Corruptions of Christianity. In 
Part I. of the General Conclusion "he threw down his gauntlet " to Gibbon, 
and in Part II. to Hurd (atite, pp. 178, 203). Gibbon thus refers to the book 
in The Decline, vi., 128: "I shall recommend to public animadversion two 
passages in Dr. Priestley, which betray the ultimate tendency of his opinions. 
At the first of these (Hist, of the Corruptioiis of Christianity, vol. i., pp. 275, 
276) the priest, at the second (vol. ii., p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble !" 

In the first passage Priestley says : " Great buildings do not often fall at 
once, but some apartments will still be thought habitable after the rest are 
seen to be in ruins. It is the same with great systems of doctrine, the parts of 
which have long gone together. The force of evidence obliges us at iirst to 
abandon some one part of them only, and we do not immediately see that, in 
consequence of this, we ought to alDandon others, and at length the whole. 
. . . The detection of one falsehood prepares us for the detection of another, 
till, before we are aware of it, we find no trace left of the immense and 
seemingly well-compacted system." With all this Gibbon must have agreed. 

In the second passage Priestley says : "It is nothing but the alliance of 
the Kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this world (an alliance which 
our Lord himself expressly disclaimed) that supports the grossest corruptions 
of Christianity ; and perhaps we must wait for the fall of the civil powers 
before this most unnatural alliance be broken. . . . May the Kingdom of God 
and of Christ (that which I conceive to be intended in the Lord's prayer) 
truly and fully come, though all the kingdoms of the world be removed, in 
order to make way for it. " 

For the letter in which Gibbon "declined his challenge" see Misc. 
Works, ii., 265. Priestley wrote in his reply: "If there be any certain 
method of discovering a man's real object, yours has been to discredit 
Christianity in fact, while in words you^ represent yourself as a friend to it ; 
a conduct which I scruple not to call highly unworthy and mean ; an insult 
on the common sense of the Christian world" {ib., p. 267). 

Such a passage as the following justifies Priestley's accusation: "Some 
deities of a more recent and fashionable cast might soon have occupied the 
deserted temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if, in the decisive moment, the 
wisdom of Providence had not interposed a genuine revelation, fitted to 
inspire the most rational esteem and conviction, whilst, at the same time, it 
was adorned with all that could attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the 
veneration of the people" {The Decline, ii., 56). 

So far was he from "fearing" Gibbon, that he wished to publish the 
letters that had passed between them, but was forbidden by him, as it was 
"private correspondence, which a man of honour is not at liberty to print ". 
He printed it soon after the historian's death (Gibbon's Misc. Works, ii., 265, 
271). 



320 APPENDIX 

Three years after this attack on Priestley in The Decline and Fall, the 
magistrates of Birmingham went to sleep, while a Church and King mob 
burnt down his house and chapel, as well as another chapel and the houses of 
many of his friends. The magistrates did not wake up till the mob 
"expanded their views," and began to plunder indiscriminately {Life of 
Priestley, ed. 1810, p. 83; Life of Sir Rowland Hill, i., 32). 

[h) Db. Joseph White. 

He was at this time Professor of Arabic at Oxford. Later on he was given 
in addition the chair of Hebrew and a canonry at Christ Church. In 1784 he 
delivered the Bampton Lectures, taking for his subject, "y^ Compariso7t of 
Mahometism and Christianity, in their History, their Evidence, and their 
Effects. " These lectures, " writes Dr. John Johnstone, " became part of the 
triumphant literature of the University of Oxford". Of them Dr. Parr had 
written about one-fifth part. "Writing to Parr about a passage in the manu- 
script of the last lecture. White said : "I fear I did not clearly explain 
myself ; I humbly beg the favour of you to make my meaning more intel- 
ligible". On the death of the Rev. Samuel Badcock in 1788, a note for £500 
from White was found in his pocket-book. White pretended that this was 
remuneration for some other work ; but it was believed on good grounds that 
Badcock had begun what Parr had completed, and that these famous Lectures 
were mainly their work. Badcock was one of the writers in the Monthly 
Review. 

On May 13, 1784, White wrote to Parr: "The fame of the Lectures 
increases daily ; they give equal satisfaction to the beaux and the belles and 
the Doctors. The Church is crowded in the most extraordinary manner ' ' 
(Johnstone's Zz/^ of Parr, i., 220-1, 230, 241, 251; see also ib., p. 251, and 
Lowndes's Bibl. Man., ed. 1871, p. 2901, for an account of a meeting held at 
Parr's parsonage to ascertain his share in the Lectures). 

The passage in White's letter to Badcock, not quite accurately quoted 
ante, p. 204, is as follows : "The part where we encounter Gibbon ought to 
be brilliant, and the conclusion of the whole must be animated and grand ' ' 
(Johnstone's Parr, i., 248). 

In 1790 he pubished A Statement of Dr. White's Lite7^a7y Obligations to the 
late Rev. Mr. Samuel Badcock aud the Rev. Samuel, Parr, LL.D. For his 
explanation of the note for £500 see ib., p. 64. 

It is in The Decline, vi., 15, that Gibbon praises White : "Perhaps the 
interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools at Oxford, 
and her pupils might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and 
truth of the revelation of Mahomet". Gibbon adds in a note: "Yet I 
sincerely doubt whether the Oxford mosque would have produced a volume 
of controversy so elegant and ingenious as the sermons lately preached by 
Mr. White, the Arabic Professor, at Mr. Bampton' s lecture. His observa- 
tions on the character and religion of Mahomet are always adapted to his 
argument, and generally founded in truth and reason. He sustains the part 
of a lively and eloquent advocate ; and sometimes rises to the merit of an 
historian and philosopher." 

In spite of his borrowed plumes, Wliite was a man of real learning 
(Johnstone's Life of Parr, i., 268). 

Macaulay recorded in Oct. 9, 1850 : "I picked up Whitaker's criticism on 
Gibbon. Pointless spite, with here and there a just remark. . . . How 
utterly all the attacks on his History are forgotten ! this of Whitaker ; Ran- 
dolph's ; Chelsum's ; Davies's ; that stupid beast Joseph Milner's ; even 
Watson's. And still the book, with all its great faults of substance and style, 
retains, and will retain, its place in our literature, and this though it is 
offensive to the religious feeling of the country, and really most unfair where 
religion is concerned. But Whitaker was as dirty a cur as I remember " 
(Macaulay 'sZ.?/e, ed. 1877, ii., 285 ; for Whitaker, see Misc. Works, i., 243, «., 



APPENDIX 321 

and Nicholss's Lit. Anec, iii., 102, where it is impudently asserted that 
Gibbon "submitted the MS. of the first volume of The Decline, &c., to his 
inspection, but suppressed the chapter obnoxious to the Christian world, over- 
awed by his high character "). 



40. GIBBON'S VINDICATION (p. 202). 

The full title of the work is A Vindication of Some Passages in the XVth 
and XVIth Chapters of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire. By the Author. London, 1779. 8vo [Misc. Works, iv., 415). 

Horace Walpole wrote on Jan. 14, 1779 {Letters, vii., 165): "There is, in 
sooth, a charming novelty to-day of a very different kind ; an answer from 
Mr. Gibbon to the monks that have attacked his two famous chapters. It 
is the quintessence of argument, wit, temper, spirit, and consequently of 
victory. I did not expect anything so luminous in this age of Egyptian 
darkness — nor the monks either." He had written to Gibbon somewhat 
earlier : "Davies and his prototypes tell you Middleton, &c., have vised the 
same objections, and they have been confuted; answering, in the theologic 
dictionary, signifying confuting'" [ib., vii., 158). "Walpole probably remem- 
bered Drj^den, who at the end of his Controversy with Stillingfleet, wrote : 
' ' Everything which is called an answer is with them a confutation ' ' 
(Dry den's Works, ed. 1892, xvii., 253). 

Mackintosh [Life, i., 245) "considered the sixteenth chapter as a very 
ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful extenuation of the cruelties 
perpetrated by the Roman magistrates against the Christians. It is written 
in the most contemptibly factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers." 
Gibbon had tried in his Vindication to meet this charge by saying that as 
there is no "Heathen narrative of the persecutions of Decius and Dio- 
cletian," he had constituted himself "counsel for the prisoner, who is 
incapable of making any defence for himself" (Misc. Works, iv., 626). 

In another passage, after stating that his accusers " convert a geographical 
observation into a theological error, " he continues : ' ' When I recollect that the 
imputation of a similar error was employed by the implacable Calvin to preci- 
pitate and to justify the execution of Servetus, I must applaud the felicity of 
this country and of this age, which has disarmed, if it coiild not mollify, the 
fierceness of ecclesiastial criticism" [ib., iv., 539). 

For the reasons why he was " more deeply scandalised at the single 
execution of Servetus than at the hecatombs which have blazed in the Auto 
da F^s of Spain and Portugal " see The Decline, vi., 127. 

By his conversion to Rome Gibbon had akeadj^ been guilty of high 
treason {ante, p. 73). By his Decline and Fall he laid himself open to 
prosecution under the Statute 9 and 10, "William III., c. 22, which enacts 
that "if any person educated in the Christian religion shall by writing, &c., 
deny the Christian religion to be true he shall . . . for the second offence 
. . . suffer three years' imprisonment without bail" (Blackstone's C(7?K»2e«^., 
ed. 1775, iv., 44). See also ante, p. 291. 

Whiston {Memoirs, p. 226) records that in 1714, at the Stafford Assizes, he 
heard Baron Price ' ' exhorting the Grand Jury to present all such as blas- 
phemed or condemned the Church's doctrine of the Trinity. The High 
Sheriff," "Whiston continues, "afterwards told the Baron that I was in 
Court, and should naturally suppose this part of his charge levelled against 
me in particular. The Baron replied that he meant no such thing ; that it 
was only his usual form ; nay, that I was the honestest man in the world, 
and that he was then reading my works." 



322 APPENDIX 



41. BISHOP HORSLEY (p. 203). 

Samuel Horsley was Bishop, first of St. David's, and next of Rochester. 
He published Tracts in Controversy with Dr. Priestley upon the Historical 
Question of the Belief of the First Ages iii Our Loj'd' s Divinity. Priestley, 
who complains of the rudeness of the attack, replied "in four volumes 
octavo. This work," he adds, "has brought me more antagonists, and I now 
write a pamphlet annually in defence of the Unitarian doctrine against all 
my opponents " (Memoirs of Priestley, ed. 1810, p. 70). 

"Windham, in his Diary, p. 125, speaks of Horsley as having his thoughts 
"intent wholly on prospects of Church preferment '. Bentham (Works, x., 
41) says: " I have heard Wilberforce call him ' a dirty rascal ' and 'a dirty 
scoundrel ' " . 

Lord Holland (Memoirs, &c., ii., 90) describes Horsley as "a man of 
coarse and vulgar manners, hot temper, and imprudent conduct ; . . . but 
distinguished for ready and powerful eloquence, a bold spirit, and a strong 
mind". According to Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, ed. 1846, v., 
635) Thurlow rewarded him for his Letters to Priestley by a stall at 
Gloucester, "saying that 'those who supported the Church should be sup- 
ported by it'". 

Just as Gribbon boasted that attacks on him by the clergy were rewarded 
in this world, so was it said of Priestley that ' ' to dispute with him was 
deemed the road to preferment. He had already made two Bishops, and 
there were still several heads which wanted mitres, and others who cast a 
more humble eye upon tithes and glebe lands " (Life of William Hutton, ed. 
1816, p. 161). 



42. BURKE'S PLAN OF ECONOMICAL REFORMATION (p. 207). 

I can never forget the delight with which that diffusive and ingenious 
orator, Mr. Burke, was heard by all sides of the house, and even by those 
whose existence he proscribed. (See Mr. Burke's Speech on the Bill of 
Reform, pp. 72-80 [Burke's Works, ed. 1808, iii., 322-334].) The Lords of 
Trade blushed at their insignificancy, and Mr. Eden's appeal to the 2,500 
volumes of our Reports, served only to excite a general laugh. I take this 
opportunity of certifying the correctness of Mr. Burke's printed speeches, 
which I have heard and read (Footnote by Gibbon). 

Burke on Feb. 11, 1780, submitted to Parliament "a plan for the . . . 
economical reformation of the civil and other establishments " . The passage 
quoted in the text is found in Burke's Works, ed. 1808, iii., 332. On Feb. 23 
he brought in his Bill to effect this reformation (Pari. Hist., xxi., 111). On 
March 13, in answer to Mr. Eden, he said that "his 2,300 volumes would 
serve as a monument under which both he and his clause might be buried, 
and form a funeral pile for them as large as the pyramids of Egj^pt ". Eden 
had instanced the illustrious writers who had sat at the Board — Locke, 
Addison, and Prior. Burke replied that "considered as an Academy of 
Belles Lettres, he was willing to bow his head to the great and shining talents 
of its several members. Every department of literature had its separate 
Professor. The historian's labours, the wise and salutary result of deep 
religious research [Gibbon's Decline and Fall}, &c. " (ib., pp. 235-8). On 
March 13, the Lords of Trade were in vain ' ' urged to withdraw before the 
division, on the ground of indecency in their voting on a question in which 
they were so personally concerned" (Ann. Reg., 1780, i., 145). Pitt, not yet 
in Parliament, witnessed from the gallery "a scene which (he writes) I never 
saw before, a majority against a Minister" (Stanhope's Pitt, i., 38). 

"The storm blew over" owing to the illness of the Speaker, which kept 



APPENDIX 323 

the House from meeting for ten days. During this recess "effectual means 
were used to bring the numerous deserters from the Court back to their 
original standard " . On April 24 the Ministers had a majority of 51. In a 
scene of "shameful disorder," Fox "declared the vote of that night to be 
scandalous, disgraceful, and treacherous. The defection," he added, 
"originated chiefly among the county members " {Pari. Hist., xxi., 523-6; 
Ann. Re^., 1780, i., 181). 

On March 8 the clause for abolishing the office of Third Secretary of 
State, or Secretary of State for the Colonies, was lost by 201 to 208 {Pari. 
Hist., xxi., 193, 217). The office was abolished at the Peace of 1782, but 
restored in 1794 (Stanhope's Pitt, ed. 1861, ii., 242). " Our late president" 
was Lord George Germain, who was appointed in 1775, and held the office 
till 1779 {Diet, of Nat. Biog.). In Nov., 1775, he was also made Secretary of 
State for America (Walpole's Letters, vi., 280), which office he held till 
March, 1782. 



43. GIBBON'S ACCEPTANCE OF A PLACE (p. 207). 

^^ From Edward Gibbon, Esq., to Edward Elliot, Esq., of Port Elliot. 

"July 2, 1779. 
" Dear Sir, 

"Yesterday I received a very interesting communication from my friend 
the Attorney-General [Wedderburne], whose kind and honourable behaviour 
towards me I must always remember with the highest gratitude. He 
informed me that, in consequence of an arrangement, a place at the Board of 
Trade was reserved for me, and that as soon as I signified my acceptance of 
it, he was satisfied no farther difficulties would arise. My answer to him was 
sincere and explicit. I told him that I was far from approving all the past 
measures of the administration, even some of those in which I myself had 
silently concurred ; that I saw, with the rest of the world, many capital 
defects in the characters of some of the present ministers, and was sorry that 
in so alarming a situation of public affairs, the country had not the assistance 
of several able and honest men who are now in opposition. But that I had 
not formed with any of those persons in opposition any engagements or con- 
nections which could in the least restrain or affect my parliamentary conduct : 
that I could not discover among them such superior advantages, either of 
measures or of abilities, as could make me consider it as a duty to attach 
myself to their cause ; and that I clearly understood, from the public and 
private language of one of their leaders (Charles Fox), that in the actual state 
of the country, he himself was seriously of opinion that opposition could not 
tend to any good purpose, and might be productive of much mischief ; that, 
for those reasons, I saw no objections which could prevent me from accepting 
an office under the present government, and that I was ready to take a step 
which I foimd to be consistent both with my interest and my honour. 

"It must now be decided, whether I may continue to live in England, or 
whether I must soon withdraw myself into a kind of philosophical exile in 
Switzerland. My father left his affairs in a state of embarrassment, and even 
of distress. My attempts to dispose of a part of my landed property have 
hitherto been disappointed, and are not likely at present to be more success- 
ful ; and my plan of expense, though moderate in itself, deserves the name 
of extravagance, since it exceeds my real income. The addition of the salary 
which is now offered will make my situation perfectly easy ; but I hope you 
will do me the justice to believe that my mind could not be so, unless I were 
satisfied of the rectitude of my own conduct " (Footnote by Lord Sheffield). 

The following extracts from Gibbon's Letters show his opinion of the 
ministry ; — 



324 APPENDIX 

"(Oct. 31, 1775.) We have a warm parliament, but an indolent cabinet " 
(Corres., i., 272). 

"(Jan. 29, 1776.) I much fear that our leaders have not a genius which 
can act at the distance of 3,000 miles " {ib., p. 278). 

"(Aug. 11, 1777.) "What a wretched piece of work do we seem to be 
making of it in America ! . . . Upon the whole, I find it much easier to 
defend the justice than the policy of our measures, but there are certain 
cases where whatever is repugnant to sound policy ceases to be just" (ib., 
p. 316). 

" (Dec. 16, 1777.) I shall scarcely give my consent to exhaust still further 
the finest country in the world, in the prosecution of a war from whence no 
reasonable man entertains any hopes of success" [ib., p. 325). 

"(Feb. 28, 1778.) I still repeat that in my opinion Lord N. [North] does 
not deserve pardon for the past, applause for the present, or confidence for 
the future" [ib., p. 331). 

"(Dec. 6, 1781.) The present state of public affairs is indeed deplorable, 
and I fear hopeless" [ib., ii., 10). 

Lord Sheffield, defending his friend, says that "although Mr. Gibbon 
was not perfectly satisfied with every measure, yet he uniformly supported 
all the principal ones regarding the American war. . . . He liked the brilliant 
society of a Club, the most distinguished members of which were notorious 
for their opposition to Government, and might be led, in some degree, to join 
in their language " (Gibbon's Misc. Works, i., 236). Unfortunately very few 
division lists are preserved. I find, however, that on Feb. 2, 1778, he voted 
for Fox's motion " that no more of the Old Corps be sent out of the King- 
dom ". Had it been carried, new levies only could have been sent to 
America (Pari. Hist., xix., 684). 

G. Hardinge wrote to Horace "Walpole (n. d. ) : " Amongst the books of 
Charles Fox carried off by the indiscriminate hands of the law, and sold 
under an execution, was an odd volume of Gibbon's i/zj/w^ of tlie Roman 
Empire. It sold for three guineas, more in honour to this manuscript in the 
first leaf than to the work : — 

" 'I received this work from the Author (on such a day). — N.B. I heard 
liim declare at Brook's, the day after the Rescript of Spain was notified, that 
nothing could save this country but six heads (of certain Ministers whom he 
named) upon the table. In fourteen days after this anathema he became a 
Lord of Trade ; and has ever since talked out of the House, as he has voted 
in it, the advocate and champion of those Ministers. Charles Fox'" 
(Nichols's Lit. Hist., iii., 213). 

Wilberforce in 1796 recorded the following : "' There are two ways, ' said 
Eliot, ' of telling a story. Gibbon was charged with having said, a fortnight 
before he took a place under Lord North, that the nation's affairs would 
never go on well till the minister's head was on the table of the House of 
Commons. Gibbon himself told the story, that he had said till both North's 
and Fox's heads were on the table ' " (Life of W. Wilberforce, ed. 1839, ii., 
179). 

Horace Walpole, in May, 1780, spoke of "the Historian's conversion to 
the Court" (Letters, v\\., 361). On April 1, 1781, he wrote: "If you will 
not read the Constantinopolitan Historian, you will at least not disdain to 
turn to a particular passage or two ; look at page 46 of vol. ii. [ed. Bury, ii., 
178], on the reduction of the legions, beginning at the words, "The same 
timid policy" . Lord John [Cavendish] says, he is persuaded that Gibbon 
had thrown in that and such sentences and sentiments when he was paying 
court to Charles Fox, and forgot to correct them after his change " {ib., viii., 
24). 

For some verses on Gibbon's acceptance of office, attributed to Fox, see 
Jesse's George Selwyn, iv., 278. 



APPENDIX 325 

44. THE THREE WITNESSES AND ARCHDEACON TRAVIS (p. 210). 

Gibbon, writing of "the orthodox theologians" of the African Church in 
the sixth century, says : ' ' Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned by 
their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text which asserts the 
unity of the Three who bear witness in Heaven is condemned by the universal 
silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts. 
. . . The pious fraud, which was embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at 
Geneva, has been infinitely multiplied in every country and every language 
of modern Europe" {The Decline, iv., 89). 

"The memorable text" is as follows: "For there are three that bear 
record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost ; and these 
three are one " (1 Epistle of St. John, v., 7). In spite of Gibbon's prophecy, it 
disappeared in 1885 from the Revised Version of the New Testament. 

Its genuineness was defended by Archdeacon Travis, who "published 
three short letters against Mr. Gibbon in The Gentleman s Magazine, 1782 
[pp. 65, 278, 330, 522]. These letters he afterwards reprinted (4to, 1784), 
with two others, much longer, addressed to Mr. Gibbon. . . . He published 
a second edition (8vo, 1786), with some alterations, and a considerable increase 
of bulk" (Porson's Letters to Travis, Preface, p. 9). 

"'I was occupied two years,' said Porson, 'in composing the Letteis to 
Travis ; I received thirty pounds for them from Egerton, and I am glad to 
find that he lost sixteen by the publication' " (Rogers's Table-Talk, he, p. 
302). 

" When the i^eWerj ^ Travis first appeared, Rennell said to me, 'It is 
just such a book as the devil would write, if he could hold a pen' " (ib., p. 
303). 

"It is a masterly work," wrote Macaulay. "A comparison between it 
and the Phalaris would be a comparison between Porson's mind and Bentley's 
mind ; Porson's more sure-footed, more exact, more neat ; Bentley's far 
more comprehensive and inventive" (Trevelyan's Macaulay, ed. 1877, ii., 
289). 

The following character of Travis, given in Nichols's Lit. A nee, ix., 78, is 
in curious contrast with the character given by Gibbon : "Though a Pluralist 
and a man of respectable talents, Mr. Travis was remarkably affable, facetious, 
and pleasant. "The universality of his genius was evinced by the various 
transactions in which he was concerned, and in all of which he excelled. In 
his manners the gentleman and the scholar were gracefully and happily 
blended." 



45. BISHOP NEWTON (p. 211). 

"•^ {Extract from Mr. Gibbon's Cotnmon Place Book.) 

"Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol and Dean of St. Paul's, was born at 
Litchfield on Dec. 21, 1703, O.S. (1st Jan., 1704, N.S.), and died Feb. 14, 
1782, in the 79th year of his age. A few days before his death he finished 
the memoirs of his own Ufe, which have been prefixed to an edition of his 
posthumous works, first published in quarto, and since (1787) re-published in 
six volumes octavo. 

"Pp. 173, 174 [ed. 1782, i., 129]. 'Some books were published in 1781, 
which employed some of the Bishop's leisure hours, and during his illness. 
Mr. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Romaii Etnpire he read 
throughout, but it by no means answered his expectation ; for he found it 
rather a prolix and tedioiis performance, his matter uninteresting, and his 
style affected ; his testimonies not to be depended upon, and his frequent 
scoffs at religion offensive to every sober mind. He had before been con- 



326 APPENDIX 

victed of making false quotations, which should have taught him more 
prudence and caution. But, without examining his authorities, there is one 
which must necessarily strike every man who has read Dr. Burnet's Tieatise 
de Siatil Mortnorum. In vol. iii. , p. 99 [ed. Bury, iii., 2l2], Mr. G. has the 
following note : ' ' Burnet [de S. M. , pp. 56-84) collects the opinions of the 
Fathers, as far as they assert the sleep or repose of hiiman souls till the day 
of judgment. He afterwards exposes (p. 91) the inconveniences which must 
arise if they possessed a more active and sensible existence. Who would not 
from hence infer that Dr. B. was an advocate for the sleep or insensible 
existence of the soul after death ? whereas his doctrine is directly the con- 
trary. He has employed some chapters in treating of the state of human 
souls in the interval between death and the resm'rection ; and after various 
proofs from reason, from scripture, and the Fathers, his conclusions are, 
that human souls exist after their separation from the body, that they are in 
a good or evil state according to their good or ill behavioiir, but that neither 
their happiness nor their misery will be complete or perfect before the day of 
judgment. His argumentation is thus summed-up at the end of the 4th 
chapter — £x qtdbus constat frimo, a?ii?nas superesse extincto corpore ; secundo, 
bonus bene, malas male se habituras ; tertio, nee illis swmmam felicitatem, nee 
his sutnmam miseriam accessurain esse ante diem- judicii.'''' (The Bishop's read- 
ing the whole was a greater compliment to the work than was paid to it by 
two of the most eminent of his brethren for their learning and station. The 
one entered upon it, but was soon wearied, and laid it aside in disgust ; the 
other returned it upon the bookseller's hands ; and it is said that Mr. G. 
himself happened unluckily to be in the shop at the same time.)' 

" Does the Bishop comply with his own precept in the next page? (p. 175 
[ed. 1782, p. 131]). ' Old age should lenify, should soften men's mannei-s, 
and make them more mild and gentle ; but often has the contrary effect, 
hardens their hearts, and makes them more sour and crabbed.' — He is speak- 
ing of Dr. Johnson. 

' ' Have I ever insinuated that preferment -hunting is the great occupation 
of an ecclesiastical life ? (Memoirs passim) ; that a minister's influence and a 
bishop's patronage are sometimes pledged eleven deep? (p. 151) ; that a pre- 
bendary considers the audit week as the better part of the year ? (p. 127) ; or 
that the most eminent of priests, the pope himself, would change their 
religion, if any thing better could be offered them ? (p. 56). Such things are 
more than insinuated in the Bishop's Life, which afforded some scandal to the 
church, and some diversion to the profane laity " (Footnote by Lord Sheflield). 

Newton wrote in the third person of his appointment as Bishop of Bristol 
and Residentiary of St. Paul's : " He was no great gainer by his preferment ; 
for he was obliged to give uj) the prebend of Westminster, the precentorship 
of York, the lectureship of St. George's, Hanover Square, and the genteel 
office of sub-almoner". Bristol was, he said, "the poorest bishopric in the 
kingdom ". When the Duke of York was told by him that "its certain clear 
income was £300 a year and little more ; ' How then,' said he, ' can you 
afford to give me so good a dinner ? ' " The Bishop still retained his City 
living, and later on got the Deanery of St. Paul's (Newton's Works, ed. 1782, 
i., 9, 65, 92, 195). 

He asked Green, Bishop of Lichfield, to "collate Mr. Seward of Lichfield 
[Boswell's Johnson, ii., 467] to a prebend in his church of Lincoln. The 
Bishop replied that at present he stood engaged eleven deep to the Duke of 
Newcastle, Lord Hardwick, and their friends" [ib., p. 115). 

After describing how " he had for several months together been at Bristol, 
without seeing the face of Dean, or Prebendary, or any thing better than a 
Minor Canon," and how the company at the Wells [Clifton] "were 
astonished at finding only one Minor Canon both to read and preach, and 
perhaps administer the Sacrament," he continues: "The church of 
Rochester was said to be much in the same predicament. One of the Pre- 



APPENDIX 827 

bendaries dining with the late Bishop Pearce, he asked him, 'Pray, Dr. S., 
what is your time of residence at Rochester ? ' ' Oh ! my Lord,' said he, ' I 
reside there the better part of the year '. ' I am very glad to hear it,' replied 
the good Bishop. But the Doctor's meaning was, and the fact really was, 
that he resided there only during the week of the Audit " [ib., p. 95). 

"One day at the levee George I. asked Dr. Savage how long he had 
stayed at Rome. Upon his answering how long, ' Why,' said the King, 
' you stayed long enough ; why did not you convert the Pope ? ' ' Because, 
Sir,' replied he, ' I had nothing better to offer him ' " (ib., p. 44). 

Horace Walpole wrote on June 4, 1782 (Letters , -viii. , 229): "Have you 
seen Bishop Newton's Life ? I have only in a Review. You may perhaps think 
it was drawn up by his washerwoman ; but it is more probably mangled (v. 
the Laundress's vocabulary : I do not mean rnaimed) by Lord Mansfield him- 
self ; at least he had the MS. for some weeks in his possession." 

"Dr. Newton, the Bishop of Bristol, having been mentioned, Johnson, 
recollecting the manner in which he had been censured by that Prelate, thus 
retaliated : ' Tom knew he should be dead before what he has said of me 
would appear. He durst not have printed it while he was alive.' Dr. Adams : 
' I believe his Dissertations on the Prophecies is his great work '. Johnson : 
' Why, Sir, it is Tom's great work ; but how far it is great, or how much of it 
is Tom's, are other questions. I fancy a considerable part of it was borrowed.' 
Dr. Adams : ' He was a very successful man'. Johnson: ' I don't think so. 
Sir. He did not get very high. He was late in getting what he did get ; 
and he did not get it by the best means. I believe he was a gross ilatterer ' " 
(Boswell's /i?/zrajo«, iv., 285). 

Cowper, in 1765, described Newton as "one of our best bishops, who has 
written the most demonstrative proof of the truth of Christianity, in my 
mind, that ever was published" (Southey's Cowper, iii., 248). 



46. THE FALL OF LORD NORTH'S MINISTRY (p. 213). 

Gibbon on Oct. 14, 1775, mentions the Addresses which fill the Gazette — 
Addresses urging the prosecution of the war (Corres., i., 271). London, Bristol, 
and the Protestants of Ireland were against the war. The Scotch, "almost 
to a man, proffered life and fortune in support of the present measures. The 
same approbation was given, though with somewhat less earnestness and 
unanimity, by a great number of towns in England. The recruiting service, 
however, a kind of political barometer with respect to the sentiments of the 
lowest orders, went on very heavily" (Ann. Reg., 1776, i., 38). 

Horace Walpole, writing on March 3, 1781, of The Decline and Fall, says 
(Letters, viii., 15) : " One paragraph I must select, which I believe the author 
did not intend should be so applicable to the present moment. ' The 
Armorican provinces of Gaul and the greatest part of Spain were thrown into 
a state of disorderly independence by the confederations of the Bagaudaj ; 
and the Imperial ministers pursued with proscriptive laws and ineffectual 
arms the rebels whom they had made ' (end of chap, xxxv.)." 

The following divisions on the American war show the changes of public 
opinion : — 

Ministry. Opposition. 

June 12, 1781 172 99 (Pari. Hist. , xxii. , 516). 

Nov. 27, 1781 218 129 (lb., p. 729). 

Dec. 12, 1781 220 179 (/^., p. 831). 

Feb. 22, 1782 194 193 (lb., p. 1048). 

Feb. 27, 1782 234 215 {/<^., p. 1085). 

On March 15, on a vote of want of confidence, the Ministry had a majority of 
236 to 227 (/^., p. 1199). 



328 APPENDIX 

On March 20, 1782, Johnson recorded in his Diary : " The Ministry is 
dissolved. I prayed with Francis and gave thanks. " To Mr. Seward he said : 
"I am glad the Ministry is removed. Such a bunch of imbecility never dis- 
graced a country" (Boswell's Johnson, iv., 139 ; John. Miscel., i., 104). The 
next day Horace Walpole wrote [Letters, viii. , 183) : ' ' Lord North, at the 
head of the mercenaries, laid down his arms yesterday, and surrendered at 
discretion ". 

Burke wrote of Lord North on July 28, 1781, a few months before he was 
driven from power: "I really pity Lord North. He has very nearly 
exhausted all the funds of his glory. He can now no longer conciliate, as 
formerly, the affections of mankind by his amiable refusals ; or command 
their admiration by the magnanimity of his submissions " (Atcckland Corres., 
i., 310). For his " incomparable temper," see ante, p. 228, n. ; and for Lord 
Holland's anecdote of "his admirable good humour and pleasantry " on the 
night of his resignation, see Bagehot's Biog. Studies, ed. 1881, p. 128. 



47. LORD SHELBURNE'S MINISTRY AND THE COALITION OF 
LORD NORTH AND FOX (p. 214). 

Horace Walpole wrote on July 1, 1782 [Letters, viii., 240) : " I can tell you 
but one word, but that is a momentous one. Lord Rockingham died at one 
o'clock at noon [_sic\ to-day. " 

On July 4 Lord Loughborough wrote to "W. Eden (Lord Auckland) : ' ' This 
morning at Court C. Fox told the iirst person he saw, that he was come with 
the Seals to resign them, if Lord Shelburne should tell him he was First Lord 
of the Treasury. . . . Lord Shelburne and he met in the drawing-room, and 
had an angry conversation, as far as people could judge who only saw it. 
Fox went into His Majesty, and in about five minutes came out without the 
Seals" [Auckland Corres., i., 2). 

Ten days later Loughborough wrote : " The first thing is to reconcile Lord 
North and Fox. The first, you know, is irreconcilable to no man ; the second 
will feel his ancient resentment totally absorbed in his more recent hostility, 
which I think he has no other probable means of gratifying" [ib., i., 9). 

Lord Macaulay [Misc. Writings, ed. 1871, p. 403), describing the Coalition 
that was now formed between these two statesmen, says of Fox : ' ' Unhappily 
that great and most amiable man was, at this crisis, hurried by his passions 
into an error which made his genius and his virtues, during a long course of 
years, almost useless to his country. . . . Not three quarters of a year had 
elapsed since he and Burke had threatened North with impeachment, and had 
described him, night after night, as the most arbitrary, the most corrupt, the 
most incapable of ministers. They now allied themselves with him for the 
purpose of driving from office a statesman with whom they cannot be said to 
have differed as to any important question. ' ' 

Fox, defending the Coalition on Feb. 17, 1783, said of Lord North : 
' ' When I was the friend of the noble Lord, I found him open and sincere ; 
when the enemy, I found him honourable and manly. I never had reason to 
say of the noble Lord that he practised any of those little subterfuges, tricks, 
and stratagems which I found in others ; any of those behind-hand and paltry 
manoeuvres which destroy confidence between human beings, and which 
degrade the character of the statesman and the man" [Part. Hist., xxiii., 
487). 

Fox's first difference with Lord North was over the Royal Marriage Act of 
1772, when he resigned his post as a Junior Lord of the Admiralty. ' ' ' Charles 
Fox ' (observed Gibbon, in one of those sentences which render his Memoirs 
the favourite book of readers who hold the secret of good writing to lie in 
saying the most, with the least show of effort and expenditure of type) 



APPENDIX 329 

' very judiciously thought that Lord Holland's friendship imported him more 
than Lord North's' " (Trevelyan's Fox, ed. 1880, p. 468). The sentence is 
not in the Memoirs, but in Gibbon's letter of Feb. 21, 1772 [Corres., i., 151). 
Fox had rejoined the Ministry in January, 1773, as a Lord of the "Treasurj', 
but in February, 1774, he was dismissed by the Prime Minister. From that 
date he was in constant opposition. 

On Feb. 21, 1783, resolutions of censure on the peace were carried by 207 
to 190 [Pari. Hist., xxiii., 571). "It is remarkable," wrote Horace Walpole 
on March 13, "that the counties and towns are addressing thanks for the 
peace which their representatives have censured " [Letters, viii., 351). 

Lord Shelburne at once resigned. " A ministerial interregnum ensued, 
which lasted till the beginning of April, during which time the Kingdom 
remained in a state of great disorder. . . . On April 2 a new adminis- 
tration was announced. The Duke of Portland, First Commissioner of the 
Treasury ; Lord North, Secretary of State for the Home Department ; and 
Mr. Fox for the Foreign" [Ami. Reg., 1783, i., 168, 175). 

" "When Mr. Fox kissed hands on his appointment, Lord Townshend, an 
observing and caustic old man, said he saw the King turn back his ears and 
eyes just like the horse at Astley's, when the tailor he had determined to 
throw was getting on him. Yet Mr. Fox was treated with civility ; Lord 
North with manifest coldness and dislike " [Life of Fox, by Earl Russell, ed. 
1866, ii., 5). 

Gibbon, following Lord North, adhered to Fox and Burke. Eliot, who 
had deprived him of his seat at Liskeard because he opposed Fox and Burke, 
followed Shelburne. and Pitt. Within twelve mouths he was rewarded by 
Pitt with a peerage. His eldest son the following year married Pitt's sister 
(Stanhope's Pitt, \., 278). 

The "hidden rock on which the Coalition struck" was the influence of 
the Crown" [ante, p. 207), by which, when Fox's India Bill came before 
the House of Lords, "a troop of Lords of the Bedchamber, of Bishops who 
wished to be translated, and of Scotch peers who wished to be re-elected, 
made haste to change sides" (Macaulay's Misc. Writ., p. 407)- "The 
Bishops waver, and the Thanes fly from us," Colonel Fitzpatrick had written 
(Stanhope's Pitt, i., 150). To borrow Gibbon's words, " Corruption, the most 
infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practised" [The 
Decline, ii., 372). 

On Dec. 3, 1783, the third reading of the Bill had been carried in the 
House of Commons by 208 to 102 [Pari. Hist., xxiv. , 61). In the face of this 
majority Pitt, at the age of twenty -four, became Prime Minister. 

On Dec. 19, Horace Walpole wrote [Letters, viii., 446): " I have only a 
moment's time to tell you that, at one this morning, His Majesty sent to Lord 
North and Mr. Fox for their seals of Secretary of State ". On Jan. 24, 1784, 
Gibbon wrote to Lord SheflBeld : " I most sincerely rejoice that I left the ship, 
and swam ashore on a plank" [Corres., ii., 92). 

" Pitt's contest against the House of Commons lasted from the 17th of 
December, 1783, to the 8th of March, 1784. In sixteen divisions the Opposi- 
tion triumphed. ... A final remonstrance, drawn up by Burke with admir- 
able skill, was carried on the 8th of March by a single vote in a full House. 
. . . The Parliament was dissolved. ... A hundred and sixty of the 
supporters of the coalition lost their seats" (Macaulay's Afwc. Writings, p. 
407). 



48. LORD MACAULAY ON GIBBON'S "POVERTY" (p. 215). 

Macaulay, with gross exaggeration, says, "that the greatest historian of the 
age, forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on 
the shores of Lake Leman" [Misc. Writings, ed. 1871) p. 413). The following 



330 APPENDIX 

facts were in print when he wrote this. Before going to Lausanne Gibbon 
wrote to Dey verdun : " Je d^penserais sans peine at sans inconvenient cinq 
ou six cents Louis" [Misc. Works, ii., 297). To Lord Sheffield he wrote: 
" In a four years' residence at Lausanne I should live within my income, 
save, and even accumulate my ready money ; finish my Historj% an object of 
profit as well as fame, expect the contingencies of elderly lives, and return to 
England at the age of fifty to forma lasting independent establishment" 
[ib., p. 306). 

To Dr. Robertson he wrote : " This exile will be terminated in due time 
by the deaths of aged ladies, whose inheritance will place me in an easy and 
even affluent situation " (Stewart's Robertson, p. 365). One of these aged 
ladies, his step-mother, was so unreasonable as to outlive him ; the other, his 
aunt, left him an estate [Misc. Works, ii., 432). On Nov. 14, 1783, he wrote 
from Lausanne : "I have the inclination and means to live very handsomely 
here" [ib., p. 336). On March 21, 1785, he wrote : " I can almost promise to 
land in England next September twelve-month, with a manuscript of the 
current value of about four thousand pounds" [ib., p. 377). (Gibbon had 
written "three thousand" (Corrw., ii., 126). Lord Sheffield, I infer, gave 
the amount received. ) The savings effected by the change of residence were 
" about four hundred pounds or guineas a year " [Misc. Works, ii., 376). 

Lord Sheffield, accounting for his residence abroad, said : " He was not in 
possession of an income which corresponded with his notions of ease and 
comfort in his own country. In Switzerland his fortune was ample " [ante, 
p. 247). 



49. PRINCE HENRY OF PRUSSIA AND MIRABEAU (p. 222). 

Gibbon wrote of Prince Henry : ' ' He is certainly (without touching his 
military character) a very lively and entertaining companion. He talked 
with freedom, and generally with contempt, of most of the princes of Europe ; 
with respect of the Empress of Russia ; but never mentioned the name of his 
brother [Frederick the Great], except once, when he hinted that it was he 
Aimsel/ that won the battle of Rossbach " [Corres., ii., 117). 

" His brother used to say, glancing towards him, ' There is but one of us 
that never committed a mistake ' " (Carlyle's Frederick II., n. d., viii., 211). 
The only mention in Carlyle's History of him at Rossbach is in the King's 
letter, who wrote : " My brother Henri and General Seidlitz have slight hurts 
in the arm" (?3., vii. , 247). Carlyle describes the Prince's visit to Paris as 
" a shining event in his Life ; and a profitable ; poor King Louis, — what was 
very welcome in Henri's state of finance — having, in a delicate Kingly way, 
insinuated into him a ' gift of 400,000 francs ' (£16,000), partly by way of 
retaining fee for France ' ' [ib. , x. , 172). 

Mirabeau, who in 1786 was sent by Calonne to Berlin, " in some semi- 
ostensible, or spy-diplomatist character " (Carlyle's Ci-it. and Misc. Essays, 
11. d., iv., Ill), published in 1789, under the title of Histoire Secrdte de la 
Cour de Berlin, the Correspotidance d^un Voyageur Frangais, 1786-7, as an 
" Ouvrage Posihume" . " It is diabolically good," wrote Gibbon [Corres., ii. , 
192). 

Horace Walpole wrote on Feb. 24, 1789 [Letters, ix., 173) : "Of Mirabeau's 
book I have heard of nobody that has got a copy here yet but the Dutch 
minister, and he the first volume only. The papers to-day say it has been 
burnt at Paris." 

"The Prince's character," wrote Lord Holland, ''is admirably, though 
somewhat roughly, drawn," by Mirabeau [Foreign Reminiscences, ed. 1850, p. 
60). 

Mirabeau, who was in London in March, 1785, wrote to Romilly : ' ' Vous 
saurez que j'ai entendu hier M. Gibbon parler, comme un des plus plats 



APPENDIX 331 

eoquins qui existent, sur la situation politique de I'Europe, et que je n'ai pas 
dit un mot, quoique d^s la premiere phrase de M. Gibbon, sa morgue et son 
air insolent m'eussent infiniment repouss6". It might be thought that he 
had mistaken another man for Gibbon (who was at this time at Lausanne), 
had he not gone on to repeat what ho said in reply when asked for his 
opinion by the Marquis of Lansdowne {Life of Roniilly, ed. 1840, i., 310). 
For Sainte-Beuve's criticism of what Mirabeau says see Causeries, viii. , 460. 

Gibbon, who met Mirabeau's father in 1763, wrote of him : " Get homme 
est singulier ; il a assez d' imagination pour dix aiitres, et pas assez de sens 
rassis pour lui seul" [Misc. Works, i., 163). 



50. CHARLES JAMES FOX AT LAUSANNE (p. 222). 

Gibbon wrote on Oct. 4, 1788: "I have eat, and drank, and conversed, 
and sat up all night with Fox in England ; but it never has happened, perhaps 
it never can happen again, that I should enjoy him, as I did that day, alone, 
from ten in the morning till ten at night. We had little politics ; though he 
gave me in a few words such a character of Pitt as one great man should give 
of another his rival ; much of books, from my own, on which he flattered me 
very pleasantlj', to Homer and the Arabian Nights ; much about the countrj', 
my garden (which he understands far better than I do) ; and, upon the 
whole, I think he envies me, and would do so were he minister" [Carres., 
ii., 180). He was accompanied by his mistress, whom he afterwards married. 
Gibbon wrote : ' ' Will Fox never know the importance of character ? " [/b.) 

" Let Fox do what he will," wrote Gibbon in 1793, " I must love the dog " 
[ib., ii., 360). 

" It is not in my nature," said Fox, " to bear malice, or to live in ill-will " 
[Pari. Hist., xxiii., 487). 

Burke, speaking on Feb. 9, 1790, described Fox as "of the most artless, 
candid, open, and benevolent disposition ; disinterested in the extreme ; of a 
temper mild and placable, even to a fault ; without one drop of gall in his 
whole constitution " (Burke's Works, ed. 1808, v., 11). 

Rogers ( Table- Talk, p. 77) reports Fox as saying that during his visit to 
Gibbon's house "Gibbon talked a great deal, walking up and down the 
room, and generally ending his sentences with a genitive case ; every now 
and then, too, casting a look of complacency on his own portrait by Sir 
Joshua Reynolds, which hung over the chimney-piece — that wonderful 
portrait, in which, while the oddness and vulgarity of the features are refined 
away , the likeness is perfectly preserved ' ' . 

Horace Walpole [Letters, vii., 505) mentions Gibbou's "vanity, even about 
his ridiculous face and person ". Some years earlier, however, he had written 
[ib., vi., 311) : " I know him a little, never suspected the extent of his talents, 
for he is perfectly modest, or I want penetration, which I Imow too". 



5L THE SUMMER-HOUSE AT LAUSANNE (p. 225). 

The last lines of the Decline and Fall are not worthy either of the History 
itself or of this beautiful passage. He ends by spealdng of his book as a 
work ' ' which, however inadequate to my own wishes, I finally deliver to the 
curiosity and candour of the Public ' ' . 

To the kindness of the Astronomer Royal I owe the following note, which 
shows the age of the moon on the night when Gibbon, having laid down his 
pen, saw " the silver orb reflected from the waters " : "The moon was new 
June 15d 3h 50m, G. M. T. , and full June 30d 2h 38m, in the year 1787. 
Between 11 and 12 in the evening, local time of Lausanne, therefore, the 



332 APPENDIX 

Moon was l2d 7h old, or 2d 15^h short of the full. The Moon was on the 
Meridian of Lausanne about 10 minutes to 10, local time, on the evening of 
June 27, 1787." Rogers, who was at Lausanne with Mackintosh in 1814, 
said : " My sister and I went to see Gibbon's house ; and borrowing the last 
volume of the Decline and Fall, we read the concluding passages of it on 
the very spot where they were written. But such an amusement was not to 
Mackintosh's taste ; he meanwhile was trotting about, and making inquiries 
concerning the salaries of professors, &c. " (Rogers's Table-Talk, p.' 196). 
"We ran to Gibbon's house," wrote Mackintosh. "We went into la 
Gibbonidre, the little summer-house where he wrote his History, which is now 
somewhat dilapidated " {Life of Mackintosh, ii., 305). 

Lord Byron wrote to John Murray on June 27, 1816 : "I enclose you a 
sprig of Gibbon's acacia and some rose-leaves from his garden, which, with 
part of his house, I have just seen. You will find honourable mention, in his 
Life, made of this acacia, when he walked out on the night of concluding his 
history. The garden and summer-house, where he composed, are neglected, 
and the last utterly decayed ; but they still show it as his "cabinet," and 
seem perfectly aware of his memory " (Moore's Life of Byron, ed. 1860, p. 
308). 

General Read, who visited Gibbon's house. La Grotte, in 1879, says that 
its site is now occupied by the new Post Office. The proprietor of the Hotel 
Gibbon, which was built at an earlier date on part of the property, ' ' attracted 
attention to the hotel garden and its historical associations, with the approval 
of the owners of La Grotte, who thus escaped the former horde of sight- 
seers ". An old lady who lived there from 1802 to 1831 told the General that 
' ' for nearly a generation the pilgrimage of visitors was continuous. As every 
English visitor cut away a portion, the summer-house gradually disappeared 
from Lausanne, and was distributed in fragments through Great Britain. Bit 
by bit the owners renewed it, but eventually not a morsel of the original was 
left. The real had given way to a copy." The copy disappeared also. "A 
little later the guides began to point out the venerable Madame Grenier, if 
she chanced to be in the garden, as Gibbon's widow. Gradually this cult was 
forgotten, and the pilgrimages had long ceased when I first reached the city." 
(They had been diverted to the hotel. ) An interesting view is given of the 
street-front of the house, where it is only one storey Ijigh, with a lofty and 
steep roof. On the southern side it had three stories. ' ' It originally formed 
a portion of St. Francis Convent. In the gigantic garrets," continues the 
General, " I found parchments, diplomas, titles of nobility, portraits in oil, 
engravings, . . . the remains of Gibbon's theatre ; in fact, the odds and ends 
of a family life of three or four hundred years. Here were letters of Vol- 
taire, Rousseau, Chesterfield, Necker, De Stael, and Gibbon" {Hist. Studies, 
i., 1-10). 



52. LORD SHEFFIELD ON THE AMERICAN TRADE (p. 226). 

Observations on the Commerce of the American States, by John, Lord 
Sheffield ; the sixth edition ; London, 1784 ; in octavo (Footnote by Gibbon). 
It was reviewed in the Gent. Mag., Sept., 1783, p. 770, where it is stated 
that "Pitt's bill for the provisional establishment of trade and intercourse 
between Great Britain and America undoubtedly gave rise to it". "Pitt 
desired to treat the United States on points of commerce nearly as though 
they had been still dependent colonies" (Stanhope's -PzVi?, i., 110). For his 
American Intercourse Bill &qq Pari. Hist., xxiii., 602, 640, 724, 894; Observa- 
tions, pp. 3, 280. Lord Sheffield wrote on Jan. 16, 1792: "British-built 
^commercial tonnage since 1773 has increased 318,522 tons, which is more than 
three-fourths of the whole commercial tonnage of France. Thanks to that 
illustrious writer, the Lord Sheffield" {Corres., ii., 288). 



APPENDIX 333 

Hume, at the beginning of the contest with oiir American colonies, had 
said that "a forced, and every day more precarious, monopoly of about six 
or seven hundred thousand pounds a year of manufactures, was not worth 
contending for ; that we should preserve the greater part of this trade, even 
if the ports of America were open to all nations " (Hume's Letters to Strahan, 
p. 288). The total declared exports from England to America were said, in 
1768, to amount to £2,072,000, and the imports to £1,081,000 {ib., p. 292). In 
1897 the exports from the United Kingdom were close on £38,000,000, and 
the imports were £113,000,000 ("Whitaker's Almanack, p. 588). 

For Adam Smith's defence of the Navigation Act, see Wealth of Nations, 
bk. iv., chap. 2 (ed. 1811, ii., 254). The Act was repealed in most of its pro- 
visions in 1849 by the 12 and 13 Vict., c. 29. "With "the palladium" lost, 
our shipping has grown so rapidly that the tonnage is almost equal to that of 
all the other countries of the world ; with our colonies thrown in, it more 
than equals it (Whitaker's Almanack, 1899, p. 726). 



53. LORD SHEFFIELD ON THE TRADE OF IRELAND (p. 227). 

The trade of Ireland was throttled by the selfish policy of England. In 
1784 an attempt, backed by the Irish mob, was made to exclude English 
goods, and "to force the home-consumption by non-importation agreements". 
Pitt, a disciple of Adam Smith, wished to give Ireland a far freer trade. He 
required from Ireland a return which the clamour even of his own party forced 
him to increase, and which the Irish were unwilling to grant. The Lancashire 
manufacturers were scared at the advantages Ireland would have in the low 
price of labour. Fox stood forward as "the champion of high protective 
duties". At Manchester, he was attended into the town, he wrote, "by a 
procession as fine, and not unlike that upon my chairing in Westminster ' ' . 

Pitt carried resolutions through the English Parliament for the basis of a 
commercial arrangement between the two countries. A correspondent bill 
being carried in the Irish House of Commons by only 127 to 108, was dropped 
{Ann. Reg., 1786, i., 10-24 ; Stanhope's Pitt, i., 261-75). 

Lord Sheflfield was ready to remove all restraints on Irish manufactures, 
provided England retained the monopoly of the colonial trade {Observations, 
&c.. Preface, p. 8, and p. 382). Gibbon wrote to him on Sept. 5, 1785 : "Of 
Ireland I know nothing, and while I am writing the decline of a great Empire, 
I have not leisure to attend to the affairs of a remote and petty province " 
{Corres., ii., 136). 

Lord Sheffield's "concluding observations" begin: " The most successful 
of our political writers are those who assert roundly that the public interests 
are irretrievably sunk into distress and misery. There is the greatest disposi- 
tion in the people to be convinced that such doctrines are just ; and they 
greedily adopt maxims which seem rather formed to prepare us for another 
world than to reconcile us to that in which we are placed" (p. 351). 



54. LORD SHEFFIELD'S ELECTION FOR BRISTOL (p. 227). 

Gibbon wrote to Lord Sheffield on Aug. 7, 1790 : "The second commercial 
city invites from a distant province an independent gentleman, known only 
by his active spirit and his writings on the subject of trade, and names him 
without intrigue or expense for her representative" {Corres., ii., 219). The 
election was not without expense. "I subscribed," Lord Sheffield wrote, 
" somewhat above £300 to Infirmary, Magdalens, Small Debtors, &c." {ib., p. 
218). The invitation was, in all likelihood, disgraceful both to Bristol and 
Lord Sheffield. That city rivalled Liverpool as a seat of the slave-trade, 



334 APPENDIX 

against which the conscience of England was now rising. Shortly before the 
election he had published Observations on the Project for abolishing the Slave 
Trade. Gibbon wrote to him on May 15, 1790 : " You have such a knack of 
turning a nation that I am afraid you will triumph (perhaps by the force of 
argument) over justice and humanity. But do you not expect to work at 
Beelzebub's sugar plantations in the infernal regions, under the tender govern- 
ment of a negro-driver?" [lb., ii., 217.) On April 17, 1791, Sheffield spoke 
against "VVilberforce's motion for the abolition of the trade {Pari. Hist., xxix., 
358-9). Four days later he wrote of the debate : "I was a considerable prop 
to good sense against nonsense, and the most eloquent declamation on 
humanity" [Carres., ii., 245). 

On April 2, 1792, a motion was carried for the gradual abolition of the 
slave-trade {Pari. Hist., xxix,, 1158). Gibbon wrote to Lord Sheffield on May 
30: "What is the cause of this alteration? If it proceeded only from an 
impulse of humanity I cannot be displeased even with an error ; since it is 
very likely that my own vote would have been added to the majority. But 
in this rage against slavery, in the numerous petitions against the slave trade, 
was there no leaven of new democratical principles ? no wild ideas of the 
rights and natural equality of man ? It is these I fear " {Carres., ii., 297). 

"Sixty thousand blacks are annually embarked from the coast of Guinea, 
never to return to their native country, but they are embarked in chains ; and 
this constant emigration . . . accuses the guilt of Europe and the weakness of 
Africa" {The Decline, iii., 52). 

"The last abomination of the abominable slave-trade " {ib., vi., 78). 

The slave-trade was abolished by the Whigs in 1806. Had it not been for 
George III. it would have been abolished many years earlier (Lord Holland's 
Memoirs, &c., ii., 157; Stanhope's Pitt, i., 370 ; ii., 146 ; iii., 186 ; iv., 202). 



55. SHEB,IDAN'S COMPLIMENT TO GIBBON (p. 228). 

Mr. Sheridan said the facts that made up the volume of narrative were 
unparalleled in atrociousness, and that nothing equal in criminality was to be 
traced, either in ancient or modern history, in the correct periods of Tacitus, 
or the luminous pages of Gibbon {Morning Chi'atticle, June 14, 1788) (Footnote 
by Lord Sheffield). 

"Yesterday," wrote Gibbon, "the august scene was closed for the 
year. Sheridan surpassed himself. . . . There were many beautiful 
passages in his speech, . . . and a compliment much admired to a certain 
Historian of your acquaintance. Sheridan, in the close of his speech, stmk 
into Burke's arms ; — a good actor ; but I called this morning, he is perfectly 
well. A good Actor ! " {Carres., ii., 172.) 

"I was pi-esent," said Rogers, "on the second day of the trial; when 
Sheridan was listened to with such attention that you might have heard a pin 
drop. During one of those days Sheridan, having observed Gibbon among the 
audience, took occasion to mention ' the luminous author of The Decline and 
Fall' . After he had finished, one of his friends reproached him with flatter- 
ing Gibbon. ' Why, what did I say of him ? ' asked Sheridan. ' You called 
him the luminous author,' &c. 'Luminous! oh, I meant voluminous'" 
(Rogers's Table-Talk, p. 63). 

Sir Gilbert Elliot (first Earl of Minto) wrote on June 14, 1788 : "Burke 
caught Sheridan in his arms as he sat down. ... I have myself enjoyed that 
embrace on such an occasion, and know its value" {Life a?id Letters of Sir 
Gilbert Elliot, he, 1874, i., 218). The editor, ElUot's great-niece, the 
Countess of Minto, says: "It is often related that at the close of the 
sentence the orator turned to a friend, and whispered, 'I said volummous '. 
The author of the joke was Dudley Loiig, who was sitting next to Gibbon in 



APPENDIX 335 

the gallery. Gibbon, as Long thought for the gratification of hearing the 
compliment again, asked his neighbour to tell him exactly what Sheridan 
had said. 'Oh,' said Long, 'he said something about your voluminous 
pages ' . Lord Russell, on whose authority we give the story, was told it by 
Dudley Long himself. ' ' 

On June 19 Gibbon dined with Hastings "by special desire " {Carres., ii., 
173). They had been school-fellows for a short time at Westminster. 



56. WILLIAM HAYLBY (p. 230). 

An Essay on History 171 Three Epistles, to Edward Gibbon, Esq. London, 
1780 ; 4'^. It seems almost incredible that Gibbon should have been pleased 
with such verses as the following : — 

"Yet while Polemics, in fierce league combin'd 
With savage discord vex thy feeling mind. 
And rashly stain Religion's just defence 
By gross detraction and perverted sense. 
Thy wounded ear may haply not refuse 
The soothing accents of an humbler Muse ' ' 

{Epis., i., 1. 17). 

"(May, 1780.) There are just appeared three new Epistles on History, 
addressed to Mr. Gibbon by Mr. Hayley. They are good poems, I believe, 
weight and measure, but, except some handsome new similes, have little 
poetry and less spirit. In short, they are written by Judgment, who has set 
up for herself, forgetting that her business is to correct verses, and not to 
write them" (Walpole's Z-s^^erj, vii., 361). 

On July 3, 1782, Gibbon wrote of the poet : "He rises with his subject, 
and since Pope's death I am satisfied that England has not seen so happy a 
mixture of strong sense and flowing numbers" {Carres., ii., 17). For the 
lines written by Porson in ridicule of Hayley — "poetarum et criticorum 
pessimus," as he called him — ^qq Johnsonian Misc., ii., 420. 

For other stanzas of Hayley in praise of Gibbon see Gibbon's Misc. Works, 
i., 260. 



57. CRITICISMS OF THE DECLINE AND FALL (p. 231). 

"(Nov. 8, 1789.) Mr. Gibbon never tires me. He comj)rises a vast body 
and period of history too ; however, I do wish he had been as lucid as Vol- 
taire, or, to speak more justly, that he had arranged his matter better" 
(Walpole's Letters, ix., 235). 

' ' Gibbon' s style is detestable, but his style is not the worst thing about 
him. His history has proved an effectual bar to all real familiarity with the 
temper and habits of imperial Rome. . . . His work is little else but a dis- 
guised collection of all the splendid anecdotes which he could find in any book 
concerning any persons or nations from the Antonines to the capture of Con- 
stantinople. When I read a chapter in Gibbon I seem to be looking through 
a luminous haze or fog : — figures come and go, I know not how or why, all 
larger than life, or distorted or discoloured ; nothing is real, vivid, true ; all is 
scenical, and, as it were, exhibited by candle light " (Coleridge's Table-Talk, 
ed. 1884, p. 245). 

" (Feb., 1823.) Gibbon is a kind of bridge that connects the antique with 
the modern ages. And how gorgeously does it swing across the gloomy and 
tumultuous chasm of those barbarous centuries. . . . The perusal of his 



336 APPENDIX 

work forms an epoch in the history of one's mind " {Early Letters of Carlyle, 
ii., 180). 

Mackintosh said in 1830 that "Gibbon's accuracy was such as justly to 
elevate him to the rank of a great authority as an historian ; and at times he 
is an excellent narrator, — for instance, in his account of Julian's march, and 
of the taking of Constantinople. The cause of his being so ill remembered is 
that he often insinuates instead of relating. Addison and Swift are now not 
read at aU ; Johnson and Gibbon very rarely " {Life of Mackintosh, ii., 476). 

"I venture to assert that no work in prose, since the time of Titus Livius, 
is equal to Gibbon's History. There is somewhat of palatial magnitude and 
of Oriental splendour in it ; nothing disorderly, nothing overcharged 
(Landor's Imag. Conver., ed. C. G. Crump, v., 15). 

" Grote said he had tested Gibbon's trustworthiness on several points, by 
reference to ancient writers, and invariably found his statements correct and 
candid. . . . He remarked upon the excellent judgment, the just apprecia- 
tion of historical incidents, the freedom from bias on personal preferences, the 
faculty of discernment in sifting the bearing of evidence, also the vigour of 
expression of Gibbon ; adding, however, his objection to the style in which 
the book is written. ' There is but o?ie Gibbon,' he said " {Life of Grote, ed. 
1873, p. 296). 

Sainte-Beuve qiiotes with approval Guizot's admiration in Gibbon of 
" '1' immensity des recherches, la vari6t6 des connaissances, I'^tendue des 
lumieres, et surtout cette justesse vraiment philosophique d'un esprit qui juge 
le pass6 comme il jugerait le present,' et qui, a travers la forme extraordi- 
naire et impr^vue des moeurs, des coutumes et des 6v6nements, a I'art de 
retrouver dans tons les temps les memes hommes " {Causeries, viii., 453). 

Mr. John Morley {Miscellanies, ed. 1886, iii., 49), recording a talk he had 
with John Mill in 1873, writes : " He greatly dislikes the style of Junius 
and of Gibbon ; indeed, thinks meanly of the latter in all respects, except for 
his research, which alone of the work of that century stands the test of nine- 
teenth century criticism ". 



58. PORSON'S CRITICISM (p. 231). 

' ' His industry is indefatigable ; his accuracy scrupulous ; his reading, 
which indeed is sometimes ostentatiously displayed, immense ; his attention 
always awake ; his memory retentive ; his style emphatic and expressive ; his 
periods harmonious. His reflections are often just and profound ; he pleads 
eloquently for the rights of mankind, and the duty of toleration ; nor does his 
humanity ever slumber, unless when women are ravished i, or the Christians 
persecuted^. . . . I confess that I see nothing wrong in Mr. Gibbon's attack 
on Christianity. It proceeded, I doubt not, from the purest and most virtuous 
motive. We can only blame him for carrying on the attack in an insidious 
manner, and with improper weapons. He often makes, when he cannot 
readily find, an occasion to insult our religion ; which he hates so cordially 
that he might seem to revenge some personal injury. Such is his eagerness in 
the cause that he stoops to the most despicable pun, or to the most awkward 
perversion of language, for the purpose of turning the Scripture ^ into ribaldry, 
or of calling Jesus * an impostor. ... A less pardonable fault is that rage for 
indecency which pervades the whole work, but especially the last volumes. 
And, to the honour of his consistency, this is the same man who is so prudish 

1 Chapter Ivii. , note 54 [vii. , 250, n. 61.] 

2 See the whole sixteenth chapter. 

3 Chapter lix. , note 32 [vi. , 333, n. 36]. 
* Chapter xi., note 63 [i., 305, n. 70]. 



APPENDIX 337 

that he dares not call Belisarius a cuckold, because it is too bad a word for a 
decent historian to use \TJie Decline, iv., 335]. If the history were anony- 
mous, I should guess that these disgraceful obscenities were written by some 
debauchee, who having from age, or accident, or excess, survived the practice 
of lust, still indulged himself in the luxury of speculation ; and exposed the 
impotent imbecility after he had lost the vigour of the passions [Junius, Letter 
xxiii.]" (Letters to Travis, Preface, p. 28). 

The slumbers of Gibbon's humanity were more extended than Porson 
represents. In the first volume of The Decline he expatiates on the "amiable 
character" of the elder Gordian ; on his " mild administration, " and on the 
"elegant taste and beneficent disposition" which "he displayed in the 
enjoyment of a great estate ". " His long life," he adds, "was innocently 
spent in the study of letters and the peaceful honours of Rome". This 
amiableness, this mildness, this elegance, this beneficence, this studious and 
peaceful innocence was not inconsistent with the slaughter of thousands of 
gladiators. "The public shows exhibited at his expense, and in which the 
people were entertained with many hundreds of wild beasts and gladiators, 
seem to surpass the fortune of a subject ; and whilst the liberality of other 
magistrates was confined to a few solemn festivals in Rome, the magnificence 
of Gordian was repeated, when he was sedile, every month in the year, and 
extended, during his consulship, to the principal cities of Italy. He some- 
times gave five hundred pair of gladiators, never less than one hundred and 
fifty" [Ttie Decline, i., 175). 

In describing the Roman triumph, when Kings were led "to an igno- 
minious death, ' ' Gibbon exhibits all the unf eelingness of the sentimentalist. 
" When the citizen cast his eye on the vanquished Kings dragged in triumph, 
his own pride triumphed at once over them and insulted humanity. But if a 
sentiment of compassion overcame his stern prejudices, and he melted at the 
sight of a fallen monarch and his innocent children still unconscious of their 
misfortim.e, his tenderness inust have been rewarded with that delightful pleasure 
with which nature repays such tears ' ' [the italics are mine] (Misc. Works, iv., 
396). 

" Gibbon has but a coarse and vulgar heart, with all his keen logic, and 
glowing imagination, and lordly irony : he worships power and splendour ; 
and suffering virtue, the most heroic devotedness if lonsuccessful, unarrayed 
in the pomp and circumstance of outward glory, has little of his sympathy " 
(Early Letters of Carlyle, ii., 180). 



59. LOUIS XVL, THE SUPPOSED TRANSLATOR OF THE DECLINE 
AND FALL (p. 232). 

Querard in Les Supercheries Littiraires DivoiUes, 1870, ii., 723, has the 
following entry: "LeClerc de Sept-Chenes, prite-no7n{J^(imSs, XVL, roi de 
France). Histoire de la dicade7ice, &c., par Gibbon (traduction commenc^e 
par Louis XVI., sous le nom de M. Le Clerc de Sept-ChSnes ; continu^e, des 
le quatrieme tome, par MM. D^meunier et Boulard, finie par MM. Cantwel 
et Marini^, et revue, quant aux derniers volumes, par M. Boulard). Paris, 
Moutard et Maradan, 1777-95, 18 vol., in-8. 

'Siskxzh.i. ^lXL Roi martyr, ou Esquisse du portrait de Louis XVL . . . "Aprfes 
en avoir traduit cing volumes, M. le Dauphin, ne voulant pas etre connu, 
chargea M. Le Clerc de Sept-Chenes, son lecteur du cabinet, de les faire 
imprimer sous son nom". Two years later a splendidly-bound copy of the 
book from the translator was given by the Count de Vergennes to the Abbd 
Aubert, who had passed the manuscript as censor. "Sur 1' observation du 
censeur que M. de Sept-Chenes aurait pu se dispenser de la magnificence de 
la reliure, M. de Vergennes lui dit : ' C'est M. le Dauphin qui est le veritable 
traducteur, et qui m'a charge de vous faire ce cadeau en son nom'. ' Nous 

22 



838 APPENDIX 

tenons cette anecdote de I'abb^ Aubert lui-mSme.' A. A. B — r [Ant. Alex. 
Barbier]." 

Sainte-Beuve believed in this story. " On a su depuis, que cette traduction 
a laquelle Septchenes mit son nom, 6tait en partie de Louis XVI." (Cate- 
series, &c., viii., 454). 

One part of the story is so manifestly untrue that I distrust it altogether. 
In this anecdote Louis XVI. is spoken of as "M. le Dauphin" two years 
after the publication of the first part of the French translation. He became 
King on May 10, 1774, nearly two years before the first volume was published 
in English, and three years before the French publication began. Moreover, 
the five volumes which he is said to have translated must have included the 
second portion of the Historj', which was not published till 1781. 

Of Septchenes' s translation. Gibbon wrote that " it is admirably well done " 
{Corres., i., 296). "It has been corrected and re-edited by Guizot" [The 
Decline, ed. Milman, 1854, i. , 124). 

In the Almanack Royal, 1781, p. 119, in the "Maison du Roi," among the 
" Secretaires de la Chambre et du Cabinet," is entered : — 

' ' (1771. ) M. le Clerc des Sept-Chenes en surviv [ance]. ' ' 



60. GIBBON'S LOVE OF LAUSANNE (p. 233). 

' ' I shall soon visit the banks of the Lake of Lausanne, a country which I 
have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild government, 
amidst a beauteous landscape, in a life of leisure and independence, and 
among a people of easy and elegant manners, I have enjoyed, and may again 
hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures of retirement and society. But I shall 
ever glory in the name and character of an Englishman." The Decline, 
Preface, p. 12. 

In his glorying he copies George III. , who, in his first speech to his Par- 
liament, said : "I glory in the name of Briton " (Boswell's /(7A«J(?«, i. , 353, n.). 
George III., in his turn, copied Milton's Satan, who ;said, "I glory in the 
name ' ' of Satan {Paradise Lost, x. , 386). 

Miss Holroyd, on Oct. 29, 1792, writing of the, threatened invasion of 
Switzerland by the French, says : " They would not do Mr. Gibbon any 
harm, being 'un Anglais,' which name he will now probably condescend to 
make use of, and not talk so much of ' nous Suisses ' as he did " {Girlhood, 
he,., p. 203). See also Corres., ii. , 373, where Lord Sheffield writes to him as 
a Swiss : "You do not deserve to be a nation," &c. 

Gibbon generally speaks of the Lake as the Leman Lake, and not, as here, 
of the Lake of Lausanne. In The Decline, vi., 333, writing of St. Bernard, he 
says : ' ' The disciples of the Saint record a marvellous example of his pious 
apathy. ' Juxta Lacum etiam Lausannensem totius diei itinere pergens, 
penitus non attendit, aut se videre non vidit. Cum enim vespere facto de 
eodem lacu socii colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus ille esset ; et mirati 
sunt universi.' To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought, the reader, like 
myself, should have before the windows of his library the beauties of that 
incomparable landscape." 



61. GIBBON'S LIBRARY (p. 234). 

Lord Sheffield reproached Gibbon with his "damned, parson-minded, 
inglorious idea of leaving books to be sold". It was to Sheffield Place they 
should be left, "to be handed down seris nepotibus [Ovid, Meta., vi., 138] as 
the Gibbonian Library ". Gibbon replied: "I consider a public sale as the 
most laudable method of disposing of it. From such sales my books were 



APPENDIX 339 

chiefly collected" {Corres., ii., 296, 301). In his library in Bentinck Street his 
Vjooks had stood two deep on the shelves {ib. , ii. , 48). The carriage of it back 
to England might, Sheffield thought, cost £400 (id., ii., 362). 

Beckford, the author of Vathek, said to Cyrus Redding: "I bought 
Gibbon's library to have something to read when I passed through Lausanne. 
I shut myself up for six weeks from early in the morning until night, only 
now and then taking a ride. The people thought me mad. I read myself 
nearly blind. I made a present of the library to my physician [Dr. SchoU] ' ' 
{New Monthly Mag. , 1844, ii. , 307). 

Miss Berry recorded at Laiisanne on July 6, 1803: "Went to the library 
of Mr. Gibbon ; it still remains here, though bought seven years ago by Mr. 
Beckford for £950. Of all the libraries I ever saw it is that which seems 
exactly everything that any gentleman or gentlewoman fond of letters could 
wish. The books are placed in two small and inconvenient rooms hired for 
the purpose. Mr. Beckford packed up about 2,500 volumes in two cases, which 
he proposed sending to England directly, but which still remain in their 
cases" (Miss Berry's Journal, &c., ed. 1866, ii. , 260). 

Henry Matthews, in 1818, found it in the same state — " locked up in an 
uninhabited house at LauS&nne " {Dairy of an Invalid, ed. 1820, p. 316). 

According to the account given to General Read in 1879 by Dr. Scholl's 
daughter, Beckford, after taking away a few volumes, left the remainder in 
her father's charge till 1815 or 1816, when he gave them to him. In 1825 Dr. 
SchoU sold half the library for 12,500 francs [£500] to Mr. Halliday, an 
Englishman, who lived in a tower near Orbe. The other half was dispersed 
by sale, 500 volumes going to an American University {Hist. Studies, ii., 505) 
In Notes and Queries, 5th S., v., 425, it is stated that the owner of the 
unscattered half " presented it to its present [1876] owner, who lives near 
Geneva". 

62. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION (p. 237). 

In 1784 Gibbon, who seems to have learnt little from history, invested 
£1,300 in a new French loan {Corres. , ii. , 93). Describing the French monarchy 
as it was in 1788, he said " it stood founded, as it might seem, on the rock of 
time, force, and opinion, supported by the triple Aristocracy of the Church, the 
Nobility, and the Parliaments " {ib. , ii., 298). 

How striking a comment was to be made on the following passage in The 
Decline, v. , 243, by the Reign of Terror, the execution of the King, the fall of 
so many of the Princes of Europe, and the rise of Napoleon ! "I shall not 
descant on the vulgar topics of the misery of Kings ; but I may surely observe 
that their condition, of all others, is the most pregnant with fear and the least 
susceptible of hope. For these opposite passions a larger scope was allowed 
in the revolutions of antiquity than in the smooth and solid temper of the 
modern world, which cannot easily either repeat the triumph of Alexander or 
the fall of Darius." 

The following extracts show the view he took of events as they passed 
before him : — 

" (Dec. 15, 1789.) How many years must elapse before France can recover 
any vigour, or resume her station among the powers of Europe ! " (Corres., ii., 
210.) 

" (April 4, 1792. ) It is the opinion of the master-movers in France (I know 
it most certainly), that their troops will not fight, that the people have lost all 
sense of patriotism, and that on the first discharge of an Austrian cannon the 
game is up" (ib., p. 293). 

" (Sept. 12, 1792.) On every rational principle of calculation the Duke of 
Brunswick must succeed ; yet sometimes, when my spirits are low, I dread 
the blind efforts of mad and desperate multitudes fighting on their own 
ground" (ib., p. 311). 



340 APPENDIX , 

"(Nov. 10, 1792.) Every clog has his day; and these Gallic dogs have 
their daj'^, at least, of most insolent prosperity. After forcing or tempting the 
Prussians to evacuate their country, they conquer Savoy, pillage Germany, 
threaten Spain ; the Low Countries are ere now invaded ; Rome and Italy 
tremble ; they scour the Mediterranean, and talk of sending a squadron into 
the South Sea" {Corres., ii., p. 333). 

Had he written his History a few years later, it would never have con- 
tained such passages as the following: "Augustus or Trajan would have 
blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial offices 
which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly 
solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain" [The Decline, i. , 68). 

■'A weak prince will always be governed by his domestics. . . . There is a 
chance that a modern favourite may be a gentleman " {ib., n.). 

^'TYie Ecclesiastes and Proverbs dUs^Y&y 2k larger compass of thought and 
experience than seem to belong either to a Jew or a King" {ib., iv., 294). 

' ' The choice of the people is the best and purest title to reign over them " 
(j^., iv., 310). 

"The power of Kings is most effectual to destroy " (ib. , iv,, 425). 

"When Gibbon heard of the King's execution he wrote to Lord Sheffield : 
' ' I was much tempted to go into mourning, . . . but as the only Englishman 
of any mark, I was afraid of being singular" (Corres., ii. , 370). For his 
friend's abuse of him in reply, as " a damned, unworthy, temporising son of 
a bitch," see ib., p. 374. 

According to Sainte-Beuve, the French Revolution gave Gibbon " un peu 
de ce patriotisme dont il avait eu jusque-la si peu. . . . En consid^rant le 
champ illimit6 d'anarchie et d'aventures dans lequel on se lancait a I'aveugie, 
il en revint a aimer cette Constitution anglaise pourlaquelle il s'^tait toujours 
senti assez ti^de. ... II est curieux de voir Gibbon devenu chaleureux comme 
uu Burke, et levant la main pour I'Arche de la Constitution comme un Fox 
et comme un Macaulay " (Causeries, viii., 469). 

63. CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS (p. 237). 

On March 2, 1790, Burke, speaking against Fox's motion for the repeal of 
the Test and Corporation Acts, ' ' professed his peculiar reverence for the 
Established Chui-ch " (Pari. Hist., xxviii., 435). 

Lord Holland (Me7noirs, &c. , ed. 1825, i., 5) wrote of Burke: " An extra- 
vagant veneration for all established rites and ceremonies in religion appears 
to have been a sentiment long and deeply rooted in his mind. It arose, 
indeed, from a conviction of the necessity of some establishment to the pre- 
servation of society. . . . Mr. Fox assured me that in his invectives against 
Mr. Hastings's indignities to the Indian Priesthood he spoke of the holy 
religion and sacred functions of the Hindoos with an awe bordering on 
devotion. ' ' 

"What Gibbon thought of Church establishments he shows when he writes, 
that by an Archbishop of Alexandria "the revenues of the Church were 
restored to the true proprietors, the poor of every country and every denomi- 
nation" (The Decline, v., 71). A Jacobin would not have gone further. In 
another passage, quoting Selden and Montesquieu, "who represent Charle- 
magne as the first /«§«/ author of tithes," he continues: "Such obligations 
have country gentlemen to his memory ! " (lb., v., 286.) 

He wrote of Burke to Lord Sheffield in the winter of 1790-1 : "I admire 
his eloquence, I approve his politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can forgive 
even his superstition. The primitive Church, which I have treated with some 
freedom, was itself at that time an innovation, and I was attached to the old 
Pagan establishment" [Corres., ii., 237). On May 31, 1791, he wrote : " Poor 
Burke is the most eloquent and rational madman that I ever knew ' ' (ib. , p, 
251). 



APPENDIX 341 

Lord Sheffield records how Gibbon " became a warm and zealous advocate 
for every sort of old establishment. ... In a circle where French affairs 
were the topic, and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with seriousness, 
argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, and said he would not, at the 
present moment, give up even that old establishment" [Misc. Works, i., 328). 

" It is by no means true that unbelievers are usually tolerant. They are 
not disposed (and why should they ?) to endanger the present state of things 
by suffering a religion of which they believe nothing to be disturbed by 
another of which they believe as little. Thej^ are ready themselves to con- 
form to anything ; and are oftentimes among the foremost to procure 
conformity from others by any method which they think likely to be 
efficacious" (Paley's Evidences, ed. 1796, i., 32). 



64. BERNE'S GOVERNMENT OF VAUD (p. 239). 

Gibbon wrote on April 4, 1792, that two popular leaders had been ' ' con- 
demned to jfive-and-twenty years' imprisonment in the fortress of Arbourg. 
It is not believed that the proofs and proceedings against them will be pub- 
lished ; an awkward circumstance, which it does not seem easy to justify. 
Some (though none of note) are taken up, several are fled, many more are 
suspected and suspicious. All are silent ; but it is the silence of fear and 
discontent ; and the secret hatred which rankled against government begins 
to point against the few who are known to be well-affected" (Corres., ii., 
293). 

Writing of the law-suit with which he was threatened, he says: "The 
administration of justice at Berne (the last appeal) depends too much on 
favour and intrigue. ... I must have gone to Berne, have solicited my 
judges in person ; a vile custom ! " {lb., ii., 203, 205.) 

In his Introduction li fHistoire Ghiirale de la Rdpublique des Suisses, he 
says : ' ' Berne apporta dans les conseils des Suisses une politique plus f erme, 
plus r^fl^chie et plus 6clair6e ; mais elle y apporta en meme temps ses desseins 
int&ess6s, le gout des conquetes, et une ambition moins soumise aux lois de 
la justice qu'a celles de la prudence " [Misc. Works, iii., 329). 

Torture was used in some of the Swiss States at all events as late as 1779 
(A7171. Reg., 1779, ii., 16). 

Vaud was freed by the French from dependence on Berne in 1798, and was 
made a sovereign canton in 1803 [Penny Cycle, xxvi., 161). 



65. CONDEMNED TO IGNORANCE AND POVERTY (p. 239). 

" Such is the constitution of civil society that, whilst a few persons are 
distinguished by riches, by honours, and by knowledge, the body of the 
people is condemned to obscurity, ignorance, and poverty" [The Decline, ii., 
65). In another passage — a passage that reveals the great historian's igno- 
rance of his countrymen — he says that ' ' the illiterate peasant rooted to a 
single spot, and confined to a few years of existence, surpasses but very little 
his fellow -labourer the ox in the exercise of his mental faculties" [ib./x., 
218). 

It is true that in another place he greatly exaggerates the extent of popular 
education. Speaking of Charlemagne, he says : "In his mature age the 
Emperor strove to acquire the practice of writing, which every peasant now 
learns in his infancy " [ib., v., 286). 

Li writing of the Ai-abs' " perfection of language," and the abundance of 
their synonyms, he continues : " This copious dictionary was entrusted to the 
memory of an illiterate people " [ib,, v., 325). 



342 APPENDIX 

Johnson would not have had any class ' ' condemned to ignorance and 
poverty". " Though it should be granted," he wrote, "that those who are 
born to poverty and drudgery should not be deprived by an improper education 
of the opiate of ignorattce, even this concession will not be of much use to 
direct our practice, unless it be determined who are those that are born to 
poverty. To entail irreversible poverty upon generation after generation, only 
because the ancestor happened to be poor, is in itself cruel, if not unjust, and 
is wholly contrary to the maxims of a commercial nation, which always . . . 
offer every individual a chance of mending his condition by his diligence. 
Those who communicate literature to the son of a poor man consider him as 
one not born to poverty, but to the necessity of deriving a better fortune from 
himself" (Johnson's Works, vi., 56 ; see also Johnson's Letters, ii. , 437). 



66. GIBBON'S THOUGHTS OF MARRIAGE (p. 241). 

In 1763, and again in 1764, he told his father that he did not think of ever 
marrying (Corres., i., 46, 70). In 1784 he wrote to Lady ShefiBeld : "Should 
you be very much surprised to hear of my being married ? Amazing as it may 
seem, I do assure you that the event is less improbable than it would have 
appeared to myself a twelvemonth ago" [Co7-res., ii., 118). Seven years later 
he wrote to his step-mother : "At fifty -four a man should never think of 
altering the whole system of his life and habits " [ib., ii., 248). " I was not 
very strongly pressed by my family or passions," he said, " to propagate the 
name and race of the Gibbons" {A?.eto., p. 275). For his "passions" see 
Auto., pp. 60, 150, 159, 205, 244, 263, 274, and Corres., i., 70 ; see also ante, 
pp. 105, 153, n. 4. 

Miss Holroyd describes a lady, Mme. de Montolieu, "who had put Mr. 
Gibbon's liberty in danger. ... It never occurs to him that she might have 
refused him" (Girlhood, &c., p. 115). For his confession that he "was in 
some danger " see Corres., ii. , 154. 

It was before this lady that he fell on his knees as a lover, according to 
Mme. de Genlis, "une assez m^chante langue, il est vrai," to borrow Sainte- 
Beuve's description of her (Causeries, viii., 468). She Avrote : "Avec cette 
figure et ce visage 6trange qu'on lui connait, M. Gibbon est infiniment galant, 
et il est devenu amoureux d'lme trfes-aimable personne, madame de Crouzas. 
Un jour, se trouvant tete k tete avec elle, pour la premiere fois, il voulut 
saisir un moment si favorable, et tout k coup il se jeta k ses genoux en lui 
declarant son amour dans les terraes les plus passionn^s. Madame de Crouzas 
lui r^pondit de manifere k lui 6ter la tentation de renouveler cette joUe sc^ne. 
M. Gibbon prit un air constern6, et cependant il restait k genoux, malgr6 
r invitation r6it6r^e de se remettre sur sa chaise ; il 6tait immobile et gardait 
le silence. 'Mais, Monsieur, r^p6ta Madame de Crousaz, relevez-vous done. — 
H61as ! Madame, r^pondit enfin ce malheureux amant, Je ne peux pas.' 
Madame de Crousaz sonna, et dit an domestique qui survint : Relevez 
monsieur Gibbon" {Souvenirs de Filicie, par Mme. de Genlis, ed. 1857, p. 
176). 

Mme. de Genlis' daughter said that her mother had made " a confusion of 
persons" (Read's Hist. Studies, ii. , 350). General Read quotes The Gent. 
Mag. , 1843, p. 506, and The Life of Cardiiial Mezzofanti to prove that the 
lady was Lady Elizabeth Foster, afterwards Duchess of Devonshire. In The 
Gent. Mag. it is stated that she was at Lausanne in June, 1787. She was 
there in 1784; " poorly in health," Gibbon wrote to Lady Shefiield, "but 
still adorable (nay, do not frown !), and I enjoyed some delightful hours by 
her bedside" ; and she was there again in 1792 {Corres., ii., 117, 310). His 
letters to her are not those of a man who had made himself ridiculous before 
her. He would not have recalled to her his "aged and gouty limbs " {Misc, 



APPENDIX 343 

Works, ii. , 472). On the death of Lady Sheffield he wrote to her : " I am 
sure that your f eeUng, affectionate mind will |not be surprised to hear that I 
set out for England next week" (Corres., ii., 380). 
The whole story is probably an invention. 



67. THE CHANCES OF LIFE AND DEATH (p. 243). 

Mr. Buffon, from our disregard of the possibility of death within the four 
and twenty hours, concludes that a chance which falls below or rises above 
ten thousand to one will never affect the hopes or fears of a. reasonable man. 
The fact is true, but our courage is the effect of thoughtlessness, rather than 
of reflection. If a public lottery were drawn for the choice of an immediate 
victim, and if our name were inscribed on one of the ten thousand tickets, 
should we be perfectly easy ? (Footnote by Gibbon.) 

"Apresy avoir r^fl^chi, j'ai pens^ que de toutes les probabilit^s morales 
possibles, celle qui affecte le plus I'homme en g^n^ral, c'est la crainte de la 
mort, et j'ai senti dfes-lors que toute crainte, ou toute esp^rance dont la 
probability serait 6gale k celle qui produit la crainte de la mort, peut dans le 
moral etre prise pour I'unit^ k laquelle on doit rapporter la mesure des autres 
craintes. . . . Je cherche done quelle est r^ellement la probability qu'un 
homme qui se porte bien, et qui par consequent n'a nulle crainte de la mort, 
meure m^anmoins dans les vingt-quatre heures. En consultant les tables de 
mortality, je vois qii'on en peut d^duire qu'il n'y a que 10,189 a parier centre 
un qu'un homme de cinquante-six ans vivra plus d'un jour. Or comme tout 
homme de cet ^ge, ou la raison a acquis toute sa maturity et I'exp^rience toute 
sa force, n'a n^anmoins nulle crainte de la mort dans les vingt-quatre heures, 
quoi qu'il n'y ait que 10,189 k parier centre un qu'il ne mourra pas dans ce court 
intervalle de temps; j'en conclus que toute probability 6gale ou plus petite, 
doit etre regard^e comme nulle, et que toute crainte ou toute esp6rance qui se 
trouve au-dessous de dix mille ne doit ni nous affecter, ni meme nous occuper 
un seul instant le cceur ou la tete." 

The mathematician Bernoulli, after pointing out to Buffon that "1' exemp- 
tion de frayeur n'est assur^ment pas dans ceux qui sont d^ji malades," 
continues : " Je ne combats pas votre principe, mais il parait plutot conduire a 
TTtTTBinr qu'a rTTDTnr " (Hist. Nat., &c., ed. 1777 ; Supplement, iv., 56. 

The passage in the text is dated March 2, 1791 (Auto., p. 349). Gibbon was 
within eight weeks of his fifty-fourth birthday. His expectation of life he 
derived from Buffon, who says : " Pour une personne de cinquante-quatre 
ans on peut parier 2,786 contre 2,588 qu'elle vivra 14 ans de plus. On peut 
parier 2,969 contre 2,405 qu'elle ne vivra pas 16 ans de plus " (Suppldme7it, iv. , 
224). "The expectation of life at fifty -four, calculated on the mortality of 
1871-80, is sixteen years and a half (Whitaker's Almanack, 1899, p. 691). 

These fond hopes of Gibbon came into my mind when, in Sainte-Beuve, I 
read that fine passage where Bossuet describes life as that " qui nous 
manquera tout a coup comme un faux ami, lorsqu'elle semblera nous 
promettre plus de repos " (Causeries, x., 201). 



68. LIFE'S AUTUMNAL FELICITY (p. 244). 

" Quelqu'un demandait au philosophe Fontenelle, ag6 de quatre-vingt 
quinze ans, quelles ^taient les vingt ann^es de sa vie qu'il regrettait le plus ; 
il r6pondit qu'il regrettait peu de chose, que n^anmoins I'S-ge ou il avait €i,€ le 
plus heureux ^tait de cinquante-cinq k soixante-quinze ans ; il fit cet aveu de 
bonne foi, et il prouva son dire par des v6rit6s sensibles et consolantes. A 
cinquante-cinq ans la fortune est 6tablie, la reputation faite, la consideration 



344 APPENDIX 

obtemie, I'^tat de la vie fixe, les pretentions ^vanouies ou remplies, les projets 
avort^s ou miiris, la plupart des passions calm^es ou du moins refroidies," 
&c. (Buffon, Hist. Nat., SuppUment, iv., 413). 

Napoleon Bonaparte, in the letter mentioned ante, p. 221, n. 4, quoted 
Fontenelle' s saying that ' ' the two great qualities necessary to live long were 
a good body and a bad heart" (Read's Hist. Studies, ii., 199). 

Voltaire wrote to Mme. du DeflEand in his seventieth year [CEuvres, lii., 
239) : " Rarement le dernier age de la vie est-il bien agr^able ; on a toujours 
esp6r6 assez vainement de jouir de la vie ; et a la fin, tout ce qu'on peut faire, 
c'est de la supporter ". Seven years later he vnrote to Lord Chesterfield : " Je 
me borne k croire que, si vous avez du soleil dans la belle maison que vous 
avez bitie, vous aurez des momens tol^rables ; c'est tout ce qu'on peut esp^rer 
a I'age ou nous sommes. Cic^ron 6crivit un beau traits sur la vieillesse, mais il 
ne prouva point son livre par les faits ; ses dernieres annees furent tres- 
malheureuses " (Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iii., 399). 

Hume, a few months before his death, writing of the previous year when 
his health was being slowly undermined by disease, said : " Were I to name a 
period of my life which I should most choose to pass over again, I might be 
tempted to point to this later period. I possess the same ardour as ever in 
study, and the same gaiety in company " {Letters to Strahan, Preface, p. 32). 

Bo wring wrote of Jeremy Bentham : "It was principally in the latter 
portion of his life that his felicity was almost untroubled. The many dis- 
comforts of the early half of his existence were often contrasted by him vrith 
the quiet and habitual pleasures of his later years" (Bentham' s Works, x., 
25). 

" An healthy old fellow that is not a fool is the happiest creature living " 
(The Guardian, No. 26). 



INDEX 



Abernethy, John, 257 n. 

Abingdon, Earl of, 169 n. 

Abjuration, Act of, 13 n, 274. 

Abulpharagius, 45, 282. 

Academy of Inscriptions, 120, 123. 

Academy of Medals, 1518. 

Acton, Lord, 276. 

Acton, Dr. Edward, 24, 154, 276. 

Acton, Richard, 16, 276. 

Acton, Richard (of Leghorn), 25, 276. 

Acton, General Sir John, 24, 276. 

Acton, Sir Walter, 276. 

Acton, Sir Whitmore, 16. 

Adams, William, D.D., 287, 327. 

Addington, Henry (Viscount Sid- 
mouth), 215 71. 

Addison, Joseph, army, 298 ; barring- 
out, 40 71 ; Board of Trade, 322 ; 
Dialogues, 160 ; historians, 295 ; 
Magdalen College, 284 ; not read, 
336 ; Padua, 166 ?i ; style, 122 ; 
younger brothers, 273. 

Africanus, 46 ?i. 

Agathias, 214. 

Agesilaus, 40. 

Aiguillon, Duchess of, 127. 

Aldrich, Dean, 283. 

Alembert (d'). Olivet, 91 « ; erudits, 
123 ; Gibbon meets him, 152 ; 
happiness, 241 «. 

Alexander the Great, 78 7i. 

Alfred, King, 51 71. 

Algiers, 25. 

Allamand, Professor, loi. 

America, war with, 191, 193, 212, 226, 
314, 324, 327, 329 ; — astrono- 
mers, 315 ; — trade, 332. 

American Secretary of State, 208, 323. 

Ammianus Marcellinus, 6 «, 181. 

Ancestry, 2-5. 

Anderson, James, 45, 283. 

A7tgloma7iie , 305. 

Anne, Queen, 16 «, 274. 

Anstey, Christopher, 174. 

ATiti-Jacobitt, 231 ti. 

Anville (d'), 159. 



(345) 



ApoUinaris, 223 «. 

Apthorpe, Rev. East, D.D. , 203, 318. 

Arabia7i Nights, 38, 93 n. 

Arabs, 341. 

Argyle, Eighth Duke of, 313. 

Arianism, 201. 

Arms, wearing, 161 n. 

Army, standing, 134, 298. 

Arnauld, Abbe, 152, 306. 

Ashmole, Elias, 13. 

Assises de Jirusalem, 229. 

Assist, 192 71. 

Astrology, 13. 

Astruc, Jean, 203 7i. 

Athanasian Creed, 71. 

Athanasius, 57 n. 

Atticus, 132. 

Aubert, Abb6, 338. 

Aubrey, Sir John, 169 n. 

Auckland, Lord, 260-2, 322. 

Augsburg, Congress of, 126. 

Augustus, 130 ;z. 

Aulnoi (d'). Countess, 7 ti, 278. 

Austin, St., 7. 

Authors, 153 71, 191, 243 n, 308, 313. 

Antomathes, 22. 

Bacon, Francis (Viscount Verulam) 

6 n, 34 «, 145. 
Bacon, Friar, 52 ti. 
Badcock, Rev. Samuel, 204, 320. 
Bagehot, Walter, 197 «, 297. 
Bagot, Bishop Lewis, 81 ti. 
Baillie, Matthew, M.D., 257. 
Baker, a Jesuit, 72 72. 
Ballard, — , 300. 
Balliol College, 290. 
Banks, Sir Joseph, 311. 
Bar, The, 114. 
Barbeyrac, 96. 
Barbier, A. A., 338. 
Barnard, Dean, 303, 312. 
Baronius, Cardinal, 68 «, 182. 
Barons' War, 144. 
Barr6, Colonel Isaac, 193. 
Barrow, Isaac, 304. 



346 



INDEX 



Barth^lemy, Abb6, 152, 306. 
Bath Guide, 174. 

Batt, John Thomas, 225 n, 264, 268. 
Bayle, Peter, scepticism, 74, 76 ; at- 
tacked by De Crousaz, 87, 96 ; at 
Copet, 222 71 ; obscenity, 231 n. 
Beauclerk, Hon. Topham, 30 n, 311. 
Beaufort (de), no. 
Beaumarchais, 206. 
Beausobre, 140, 299, 
Backet, T., 126, 128. 
Beckford, William, 339. 
Beddoes, Thomas, M.D., 200 n, 
Bedford, Fourth Duke of, 298. 
Behraen (Bohme), Jacob, 22. 
Belisarius, 337. 
Belleisle, Marshal de, 155 n. 
Benedict XIV. , 164. 
Benedictines, 56. 

Bentham, Edward, D.D., 80, 291. 
Bentham, Jeremy, Oxford, 50 «, 65 n, 
289, 290 ; Lind's Manifesto, 205 n ; 
Eliot and Gibbon, 209 n, 313 ; 
Westminster School, 279 ; Hors- 
ley, 322 ; old age, 344. 
Bentley, Richard, D. D., Phcedrus, 36, 
278 ; Pope's Homer, 38 n ; New 
Testament, 56 n ; vernacular idiom, 
130 ; Spanheim's portrait, 160 n ; 
learning, 210. 
Bergier, Nicholas, 159. 
Bernard, St., 338. 
Berne, 98 n, 223, 238, 341. 
Bernoulli, S9, 343- 
Berry, Miss, 339. 
Bertie, Hon. Peregrine, 169 «. 
Best, H. D., 288. 
Betts, Dr. John, 13. 
Bigge, Thomas Charles, 169 n. 
Biographia Britannica, 6. 
Birch, Thomas, D.D. , 144. 
Blackstone, Sir William, act of abjura- 
tion, 274 ; armorial ensigns, 9 n ; 
army, 298 ; burgage tenure, 277 ; 
Christianity, 321 ; Cornmentaries, 
81, 184 ; esquires, 8 n ; lectures at 
Oxford, 292 ; Militia Act, 119 n, 
135 n ; Popery laws, 73, 291 ; uni- 
versities, 287 ; younger sons, 273. 
Blake, William, 303. 
Blandy, Miss, 58 n. 
Bl^terie, Abb6 de la, 97, 152, 306. 
Bliss, Philip, 61 ?i. 
Blondel, — , 220 n. 
Bloxam, Rev. J. R., D.D., 283. 
Blunt, Sir John, 18 n. 
Board of Trade, 208, 213, 322. 
Boase, Rev. C. W. , 61 n. 



Boccage (du), Madame, 153, 308. 

Bochat (de), 223 n. 

Boileau, 231. 

Bolingbroke, Viscount, army, 298 ; 
French, 133 ; Gibbon's grand- 
father, 16 ; historians, 295 ; Jaco- 
bites, 25 ;?, 58 n. 

Bologna, 165. 

Bolton, Duke of, 119 n, 136, 302. 

Bolton, Duchess of, 7 tt. 

Booksellers, 243. 

Boromean Islands, 161. 

Bossuet, 69, 343. 

Boswell, James, boyish years, 46 n ; 
esquires and gentlemen, 8 ;/,, 273 ; 
Gibbon, 73, n 311 ; Highlanders 
at Derby, 28 n ; Literary Club, 
312 ; popular belief, 78 n ; read 
beyond the Mississippi, 233 n ; 
Russell Street, 72 n ; Toryism, 
174 n. 

Boufflers (de). Countess, 175 n. 

Bougainville (de), 152, 307. 

Boulainvilliers (de), Count, 223 n. 

Boulard, 337. 

Bourdaloue, 300. 

Bower, Archibald, 44, 282. 

Bowring, Sir John, 344. 

Boyhood, 46. 

Breitinger, Professor, 100. 

Brenles (de), Madame, 295. 

Bristol, 227, 253, 333. 

Bristol, Earl of, 115. 

British Museum, 124 n, 188 n. 

Brizard, Abb^, 317. 

Brocklesby, Richard, M.D. , 137 «• 

Brodrick, Thomas, 17 n. 

Brougham, Lord, 297. 

Brunswick, Duke of, 339. 

Brunswick, Hereditary Prince of, 14, 
221 n. 

Bryce, James, 293. 

Brydges, Sir S. E., 10 n, 11 n. 

Buffon, style, i n ; chances of life, 29 n, 
239 n, 343 ; Gibbon's acquaintance, 
152, 199. 

Bugnion, Madame, 89 n. 

Buller, Charles, 313. 

Burgage tenure, 25, 277. 

Burgersdicius, 80 n. 

Buriton or Beriton, 116. 

Burke, Edmund, army, 298 ; Bill of 
Reform, 208, 213, 215 n, jfii ; 
Chatham, Earl of, 151 n ; Church 
Establishments, 237, 290, 340 ; 
Coalition Ministry, 329 ; com- 
panions, 220 n ; fame, 242 n ; Fox, 
331 ; ; French Revolution, 237 ; 



INDEX 



347 



Gibbon, 190 n, 260-1 ; government 
asleep, 192 n ; Helv^tius, 308 ; 
historians, 296 ; Hunter's lectures, 
200 71 ; influence, 119 ;z ; " le 
grand Burke," 134 n ; Literary 
Club, 311 ; Militia Act, 135 n ; 
North, Lord, 328 ; opposition, 193 ; 
Oxford, 291 ; Septennial Act, 19 
n ; Sheridan, 334 ; Tories, 135. 

Burmann, Peter, 36, 59, 278. 

Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, 61 n. 

Burnet, Bishop Gilbert, 6 n, 211 7i, 274. 

Burnet, Rev. Thomas, LL.D., 211, 
326. 

Burney, Dr., 311. 

Burton, John, D.D., 80. 

Bute, third Earl of, 119, 207 «, 301. 

Bute, Marquis of, 169 n, 

Byers, James, 163. 

Byrom, John, 24 Jt. 

Byron, Lord, 332. 

Cade, Jack, 10. 

Cadell, Thomas, 194, 229. 

Caesar of Este, 165 n. 

Calonne, 330. 

Calvin, 321. 

Cambridge, University of, antiquity, 
51 ; discipline, 47, 52 ; matricula- 
tions, 42 n ; Darwin, 50 n ; Parr 
and Pitt, 57 n. 

Camden, William, 14, 295. 

Campbell, Lord, 322. 

Canterbury, John Moore, Archbishop 
of, 262. 

Cantwel, Andr^, 232, 337. 

Capperonnier, 152, 307. 

Carlyle, Thomas, Frederick the Great, 
103 71, 138, 330 n ; British Museum, 
188 7z ; FreTtch Revolution, 225 « ; 
Girondists, 260 « ; Gibbon, 297, 

335. 337- 
Caroline, Queen, 133, 298. 
Carter, Laurence, 18 71. 
Casaubon, 123, 277. 
Catrou, Fran9ois, 93. 
Cattel, — , 59 71. 
Cavendish, Lord John, 324. 
Caylus, Count de, 127, 129, 152, 305. 
Cellarius, Christopher, 45, 282. 
Cellini, Benevenuto, 7. 
Cerinthus, 223 71. 
Chambers, Sir Robert, 292. 
Charlemagne, 340, 341. 
Charlemont, Earl of, 115 /i. 
Charles L , 13 «, 74. 
Charles IL, 13. 
Charles V., Emperor, 147. 



Charles VI. , Emperor, 97 n. 

Charles VIIL of France, 143. 

Charles XIL of Sweden, no /t. 

Charles Emanuel IIL , 161. 

Chatham, Earl of, see Pitt, William. 

Chelsum, James, D.D., 202, 210, 318. 

Chemistry, 200. 

Chesterfield, Fourth Earl of, Arabian 
Nights, 93 n ; domesticated, 115 ; 
Du Boccage, 308 ; Einsidlen, 99 
71 ; French, 132 ; Geneva, 82 n ; 
Gibbon, 175, 176 ?£ ; Lady Hervey, 
116 n ; letters, 332 ; Liskeard, 
313 ; Militia Bill, 119 n ; old age, 
344 ; the Pope, 164 71 ; Robertson, 
297 ; schools, 40 n ; u7iwell, 255 
71 ; young travellers, 167 71. 

Chesterfield, Fifth Earl of, 176, 216 71. 

Child, Professor F. J., 82 ;z. 

Chilling worth, Wilham, 49, 74, 286. 

Chitty, Lord Justice, 293. 

Choiseul, Duke of, 206. 

Christianity, Church establishments, 
237i 340 ; effect on learning, 52 71 ; 
• — on the Roman empire, 183 ; 
established by law, 321 ; Gibbon's 
attack, 201, 209, 317-21, 325 ; 
human causes, 194 ; Incarnation, 
223 ; infallible church, 74 ; mir- 
acles, 67. 

Chronology, 45. 

Church Establishments, see Christi- 
anity. 

Church, Dr., 67 n. 

Churchill, Charles, 25 7t, 287. 

Churton, Archdeacon, 64 7t. 

Cibber, Colley, 7. 

Cicero, Gibbon studies him, 90 ; 
quoted, 118 n, 139 ; knowledge 
of Greek, 132 ; circulation of the 
blood, 203 n ; first editions, 254 ; 
philosophic writings , 309. 

Clarendon, First Earl of, 75 «, 81, 285. 

Clarke, Godfrey, 169. 

Claron, Madame, 153. 

Cleaver, Rev. Mr. , 169 it. 

Clement XIII. , 164. 

Clement XIV. , 164. 

Clergy, 66 n. 

Cline, Henry, 257. 

Clos (du), 152, 307. 

Cluverius, 158. 

Coalition Ministry, 214, 217, 227 n. 

Coke, Sir Edward, 8 71, 313. 

Coleridge, Sir J. T., 293. 

Coleridge, S. T. , 335. 

Colman, George, 58 «, 65 ti, 311. 

Condamine (de la), 152, 306. 



348 



INDEX 



Condorcet, iii n, 296. 

Confucius, 4. 

Congreve, William, 151 n. 

Constantine, Emperor, 68 n. 

Constantine, Robert, 302. 

Constantinople, libraries of, 120 n. 

Conversation, 220. 

Conversions, 72. 

Convocation, 274. 

Conway, General, 175 n. 

Cork, Countess of, 250 n. 

Cornbury, Lord, 29 n. 

Corneille, 105 n. 

Cornelius Nepos, 35. 

Cornwallis, Archbishop, 318. 

Corporation and Test Acts, 193 n. 

Correvon, — , 294. 

Courtney, Right Hon. L. H. , 313. 

Courtney, W. P., 209 n, 314. 

Coventry, Second Earl of, 12. 

Cowper, William, Westminster 
School, 46 «, 279, 287 ; Maty, 
124 11 ; Hayley, 230 n ; Gibbon 
and Robertson, 297 ; Raynal, 306 ; 
Bishop Newton, 327. 

Cox, Rev. G. v., 288. 

Craufurd of Auchinames, 251, 260, 
264-5. 

Cr^qui, Duke of, 149 n. 

Crevier, 100. 

Cromers, 10. 

Crousaz (de), 87, 96 

Crousaz (de), Madame, 342. 

Cumberland, Duke of, 127 n. 

Cumberland, Richard, 279. 

Curchod, Susan, see Necker. 

Dalrymple, Sir David (Lord Hailes), 
203-4. 

Damer, Hon. George and John, 169 n. 

D'Arblay, Mme., Gibbon and Cecilia, 
96 n ; Gibbon's voice, 245 n ; — 
person, 248 11 ; Lord Eliot, 313. 

Darrell, Edward, 26 n, 268. 

Darrell, Robert, 26 «, 265. 

Darwin, Charles, 50 n, 54 n. 

Darwin, Francis, 50 n. 

Dashwood, Sir James, 58 n. 

Davey, Samuel, 219 n. 

Davies, Rev. Henry Edward, 202, 210, 

317- 

Da Vila, 44, 281, 296. 

Decently, 20 n. 

Decline and Fall, accuracy, 231, 336 ; 
composition, 225 ; conception, pro- 
gress, and deliverance, 167, 181, 
189, 225, 308, 331 ; criticised, 
335 ; dedication, 228 n ; editions, 



Dublin, 195, 233 ; — foreign, 233 ; 
"grouping the picture," 224; 
happiness in writing it, 242 ; 
indecency, 230, 336 ; irreligion, 
201, 230, 325, 336 ; notes, 233 n ; 
presented to a Duke, 127 n \ 
publication and profits, 195, 209, 
229, 315, 330; style, 190, 224, 
297, 315 ; title, 189 ; translations, 
210, 212, 232, 337; vol. i., 193; 
vols. ii. and iii. , 200, 209 ; vols, 
iv., v., and vi. , 214, 223, 229. 

Deffand (du), Mme., 316. 

Delany, Mrs., 48 ;z. 

Delm6, Peter, 27. 

D^meunier, Count, 232, 337. 

Denbigh, Earls of, 4. 

Dennis, John, 22 n, 274. 

Destouches, P. N. , 218 n. 

Devonshire, Duke of, 264. 

Devonshire, Georgiana, Duchess of, 
252. 

Deyverdun, George, Gibbon, early 
friendship with, 86, 93 ; — visits, 
168 ; — Swiss History, 171 ; — 
shares his house, 216 ; Mimoires 
Littiraires, 173 ; tutor, 176 ; 
reads MS. of The Decline, 225 
n ; death, 235. 

Dicey, Professor A. V., 293. 

Diderot, 152. 

Digby, Lord, 258 n. 

Dodd, James William, 279. 

Dodwell, Dr., 67 n, 302. 

Domesticated, 115. 

Douglas, Sylves'ter (Lord Glenbervie), 
249 n. 

Dow, Colonel Alexander, 316. 

Droit de retrait, 235. 

Dryden, John, army, 298 ; astrology, 
13 n ; author's judgment of his 
own works, 191 n ; confutation, 
321 ; controversial books, 69 n ; 
conversion, 75 n ; Epistle to Knel- 
ler, 43 71 ; The Hind and the 
Panthe7', 70, 71, 78 « ; History of 
the League, 312 ; lucid interval, 
34 fi; Oxford, 50 n; "tracking 
in their snow," 201 n ; Virgil, 38. 

Dublin pirates, 195. 

Dugdale, Sir William, 13. 

Dumesnil, Madame, 153. 

Dummer, — , 27. 

Dunning, John (Lord Ashburton), 193, 
207, 256 n, 311. 

Eachard, Lawrence, 45, 282. 
Edgar, Sir Gregory, 11, 



INDEX 



349 



Edgeworth, Maria, 316. 
Edgeworth, R. L. , 289. 
Edmonstone, Colonel, 169 n. 
Education, 341. 
Edward the Black Prince, 144. 
Edwards, Rev. Thomas, LL. D. , 204. 
Effingham, Earl of, 137, 300-1. 
Egerton, T. and J., 325. 
Egremont, Lord, 250-1. 
Einsidlen, 99. 

Eldon, First Earl of, 289, 292. 
Eliot, Edward (First Lord Eliot), 21, 82, 
86 n, 191, 208, 268, 313, 323, 324, 

329- 
Eliot, Lady, 21, 268. 
Eliot, Sir John, 21 n. 
ElUot, Sir Gilbert (Earl of Minto), 334. 
Elliston, Catherine, 21. 
Elliston, Edward, 21. 
Elmsley, Peter, 194, 251, 255. 
Emerson, R. W. , 225 n. 
Emmius, 282. 
England, prosperity, 227 ; language 

and literature, 233, 310. 
Entails, 185 n. 
Enthusiasm, 22, 163. 
Erasmus, 6, 52 n, 131, 237. 
Erskine, Lord Chancellor, 257 n. 
Erskine, Monsignor, 260. 
Erudits, 123. 

Esquires and gentlemen, 8, 273" 
Ethico, Duke of Alsace, 4. 
Eton College Library, 284. 
Eugenius IV. , 182 n. 
Eusebius, 22 «, 46 ti. 
Evelyn, John, 166 7i. 
Exmouth, Viscount, 25 n. 

Fables, 35. 

Fame, 241. 

Farquhar, Sir Walter, 256, 259, 262, 

266. 
Farquhar, — , 256 n. 
Fathers and sons, 186 n. 
Fell, Bishop, 286. 
Fenton, Elijah, 274. 
Ferdinand IV. of Naples, 164. 
Ferrara, 165. 
Fielding, Henry, Jacobites, 26 n ; 

Tom Jones, 4, 243 ; schools, 34 «, 

40 n ; tour of Europe, 166 n ; 

Hoadley's Plain Account, 275 ; 

Mandeville, 275. 
Fiens, James (Baron Say and Seale), 

10. 
Filmer, Sir Robert, 312. 
Finden, John, 61 n, 283. 
Fines, 56. 



Fisher, John, 74. 

Fitzpatrick, Colonel, 329. 

Fleury, Abb6 de, 97 n. 

Florence, 147, 162, 171, 229. 

Flying post, 263. 

Folard, J. C. de, 138 n. 

Foncemagne (de), 143, 153, 199, 308. 

Fontenelle, 125, 152, 243, 343. 

Foothead, — , 210. 

Fortescue, G. K. , 32 n. 

Foster, Lady Elizabeth, 342. 

Fowler, Thomas, D.D., 286. 

Fox, Charles James, American war, 
323, 324 ; Burke's Bill of Reform, 
323 ; character, 222, 331 ; coali- 
tion ministry, 214, 328 ; debater, 
193 ; Gibbon, 271, 324 ; influence, 
208 n, 213 71 ; Irish trade, 333 ; 
Lausanne, 221-2, 331 ; Literary 
Club, 311 ; medical science, 258 
n ; Oxford, 289 ; Pitt, compared 
with, 192 n ; resigns office, 328 ; 
Septennial Act, 19 ?t ; Test Acts, 
340 ; thirty-nine articles, 290. 

France, Anglomania, 151 ; authors, 
152 ; historians, 173 ; language, 
109, 132, 172, 310; people, 150; 
prisoners, 123 ; Revolution, 237, 
248, 253, 260, 339 ; society, 316 ; 
soldiers, 257 n ; splendour, 150 ; 
war, 109, 134, 151, 206 7t. 

Francis, Rev. Philip, 42. 

Francis, Sir Philip, 42 7i. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 196 «, 207 n, 314. 

Frederick the Great, Beausobre, 140 « ; 
greatness, 132, 161 ; happiness, 
241 n ; Prince Henry, 330 ; Quintus 
Icilius, 138 71 ; Raynal, 306 ; 
Voltaire, 103, 154 «. 

Freret, iii «. 

Frey, 82. 

Froben, John, 52 7t. 

Gale, Thomas, D.D., 142. 

Galton, Arthur, 281. 

Game laws, 117. 

Garat, D. J., 245 w, 248 «. 

Garrick, David, 114, 304, 311. 

Gascoyne, Sir Thomas, 169 n. 

Gay, John, 116 n, 166 ?i. 

Gee, — , 85 n. 

Geneva, 222 ??, 223, 238 n. 

Genius, 143, 303. 

Ge7iius of the place, 50. 

Genhs (de), Madame, 342. 

Gennadius, Patriarch, 71 w. 

Genoa, 161. 

Gentlemari s Magazine, 230 n. 



350 



INDEX 



Geoffrin, Madame, 153, 307. 

George I., 29 n, 274, 291, 327. 

George II., 32. 

George III., a Briton, 338 ; Chatham, 
Lord, 203 n ; coronation, 137 « ; 
Fox, 329 ; Gibbon, 212 n ; Hessian 
troops, 134 n ; Kurd's Dialogues, 
146 n ; North, Lord, 208 n ; slave 
trade, 334 ; subpreceptor, 141 h ; 
Warburton, 179?? ; Wedderburne, 
207 n. 

George IV., 80 «, 215 n, 256 n. 

Germain, Lord George, 323. 

German mercenaries, 134. 

Gesner, Matthew, loi. 

Giannone, 97. 

Gibbon, Catherine (Mrs. EUiston), 21, 
23, 276. 

Gibbon, Dorothea (the historian's step- 
mother), 113, 117, 168, 198 w, 251, 
253, 269 n. 

Gibbon, Edmund, 10. 

Gibbon, Edward (1602), 8 n. 

Gibbon, Edward (the historian's grand- 
father), birth, 15 ; South Sea Com- 
pany, 16-20, 239;? ; second fortune, 
20 ; death, 21 ; Borough of Peters- 
field, 25, 276 ; Jacobite, 32 n ; 
stern parent, 112. 

Gibbon, Edward (historian's father), 
marriage, 21, 26 ; birth and edu- 
cation, 23 ; member for Petersfield, 
25, 277 ; alderman, 29 ; wife, death 
of, 36 ; son's conversion, 73 ; son's 
return, 112 ; second marriage, 112 ; 
retirement, 115 ; racehorse, 118 ; 
his son's Essai, 126-7 I militia, 135 ; 
debts, 168, 185, 323 ; death, 186. 

GIBBON, EDWARD, Chief Events 
OF His Life. 
Born 27th April, o.S. (8thMay, N.S.), 

1737, 26. 
Death of his mother (1747), 36. 
Enters Westminster School (1748 or 

1749). 39, 278. 
Enters Magdalen College, Oxford 

(1752). 43- 
Converted to Rome (1753), 72. 
Re-converted (1754), 90. 
Sent to Lausanne (1753), 82. 
Engaged to Mile. Curchod (1757), 

106. 
Returns to England (1758), 109. 
Enters the Militia (1760), 135. 
Publishes Essai sur I'Etude de la 

Littirature (1761), 127. 
Begins his foreign tour (1763), 148. 



Sat amidst the ruins of the Capitol 

(15th October, 1764), 167. 
Returns to England (1765), 168. 
Finishes his Introduction d V Histoire 

Ginirale de la Rdpublique des 

Suisses (1768), 172. 
Publishes Mimoires Littdraires de la 

G}-a?ide Bretagne (1768-69), 175. 
Publishes Critical Observations on 

the Sixth Book of the ^neid 

(1770), 179. 
Death of his father (1770), 186. 
House in London (1773), 187. 
Elected M.P. for Liskeard (1774), 

191. 
Publishes vol. i. of The Decline and 

Fall {lyth February, 1776), 194, 

315- 
Trip to Paris (1777), 198. 
Publishes Vindication, etc. (1779), 

202. 
Writes Mimoire Jtistificatif (1779), 

205. 
Commissioner of Trade (1779)1 207. 
Parliament dissolved (1780), 208. 
Publishes vols. ii. and iii. of The 

Decline and Fall (ist March, 

1781), 209. 
Elected M.P. for Lymington (1781), 

212. 
Ceases to be Commissioner of Trade 

(1782), 213. 
Retires to Lausanne (1783), 216. 
Writes the last lines of The Decline 

and Fall (27th June, 1787), 

225. 
Visits England (1787), 226. 
Publishes last three vols, of The 

Decline and Fall (8th May, 

1788), 229. 
Returns to Lausanne (1788), 234. 
Death of Deyverdun (1789), 235. 
Returns to England (1793), 248. 
Dies (i6th January, 1794), 264. 

Gibbon, Edward, Age of Sesostris, 
63 ; allowance, 48, 84, 148 n ; 
American war, 191, 314 ; anatomy 
and chemistry, 200 ; Bath, 41, 253 ; 
Bentinck Street house, 187, 218 n ; 
birth, 26, 229 ; Board of Trade, 
207, 213, 215, 323 ; boyish years, 
46 ; brothers and sister, 27, 29 ; 
Buriton, 117, 187; canvassing, 119; 
card-playing, 220 ; character, iii, 
153 n, 240, 294, 300, 316, 336-7; 
Chesterfield's Letters, xj6n; Coali- 
tion Ministry, 215, 329 ; common- 



INDEX 



351 



place book, 98 ; conversation, 245, 
250, 262 ; correspondence with 
scholars, 100 ; country life, 117, 
187 n, 219 n ; critics, 242 ; dancing, 
86, 215 n ; death, 264 ; Decline 
and Fall, see ante under Decline 
and Fall; Deyverdun, friendship 
with, 86, 168, 173, 216, 235 ; dis- 
guised as a Dutch officer, no; 
Dissertation on Charles VIII., 
144 ; Dissertation on Virgil, 93 ; 
Downing Street, 227 ; education 
at Lausanne, 108 ; English, study 
of, 122 ; Englishman, ceases to be 
an, 109, 293 ; — made an, 138 ; — 
glories in the name, 338 ; enthusi- 
asm, 163; envy, not susceptible of, 
170 ; epitaph, 270 ; exercise, 249 ; 
fame, love of, 241 7i ; father, treat- 
ment by his, 112 ; — dedication to, 
127 ; foreign embassy, proposed 
employment on, 113 ; Freemason, 
93 n ; French, knowledge of, 85, 
130-4, 172 ; — loan, 339 ; — people, 
150, 238 n, 247 ; friend, warm, 248 ; 
future state, 248 n ; Gallicisms, 
109 n, 224 ; gaming, 85 n ; gentle- 
man, not an author, 151 n ; 
German, ignorance of, 147, 233 ; 
Greek, 94, 121, 129, 141, 184, 214, 
234, 299 ; happiness, 242 n ; health, 

30, 42, 218 ?t, 241, 247, 256-66 ; 
historian, aspired to be an, 122, 
143, 296 ; historical compositions 
planned, 143-8, 171, 234/2 ; history, 
love of, 43, 44 ; Holroyd, meets, 
157; "home," 226 n ; ignorance 
of the people, 341 ; income, 187, 
215, 241, 243, 247, 323, 329; 
independence, 169, 188 ; indolence, 
84 n, 249 ; Inquisition upheld, 
341 ; Italian, 162 ; journal, 298 ; 
Lausanne (1753-58), 82-110 ; — 
(1763-4), 154-60; — (1783-87), 216- 
26, 329; — (1788-93), 234-9; — 
house (La Grotte), 218, 235, 246, 
295 ; — summer-house, 225, 331 ; 
law, study of, 95, 113, 184 ; hbrary, 
119, 216, 219, 222, 234, 338 ; life, 
lot in, 26, 239 ; — chances of, 243, 
265, 343 ; Literary Club, 311 ; 
Lives of Eminent Persons planned, 
235 n ; London, love of, 114 ; — 
its solitude, 218 n\ — its tumult, 
233 ; love and matrimony, 105, 
153 ^^ 157 n, 241, 293, 342; 
Madeira wine, 265 ; mathematics, 

31, 95 ; memory, 104 ; militia, 



119, 127, 135-41, 148, 158 n, 168- 
70, 295, 298-303 ; Miscellaneous 
Works, 315 ; mortgages, 185 ; 
mother's death, 36 ; natural 
beauties, 219 ?i ; novel-reading, 
96 ; office-seeker, 193 n ; Oxford 
(1752-3). 46-73. 283; — (1793), 
251 n, 284 ; Paris (1763), 148, 
157 ; — (t^777), 198 ; parliament, 
member of (1774-80), 191, 208 ; 

— (1781-3), 212, 215, 216 n ; — 
votes, 191, 314; patriotism, 340; 
person, 86 n, 89 n, 161 n, 248, 
256 n, 311 ; portraits, 86 n, 209 n, 
269 n, 331; "poverty," 329; 
Principes des Poids, etc., 121 ; 
professions, 170 ; Putney, 37 ; 
reading, 37, 43, 63, 85-98, 119, 
140, 158, 299 ; riding, 86 ; Roman 
Catholic, 67 ; — re-conversion, 
89, 293 ; Roman Club, 169 ; 
Rome, 163, 164, 167, 308 ; school 
life, Putney, 31 ; — Kingston, 34 ; 

— Westminster, 39, 278 ; — 
Esher, 42 ; Scotch flattered, 206 n ; 
servant, 84; shyness, 116; slave- 
trade, 334 ; solitude, 118, 236 ; 
sports, 87 n, -L-Lj ; step-mother, 
112, 251 ; studying, method of, 
122; — hours of, 224; style, i, 
189, 201, 245, 297 ; Swiss, Hking 
for the, 238 71, 338 ; tailor's bill, 
219 n \ "The Gibbon," 234 n; 
tour, Swiss, 98 ; — foreign, 148- 
168 ; tutor, 31 ; untruthfulness, 
112 n, 113 n, 226 n ; vanity, 331 ; 
verses, 38 n ; Wedgewood ware, 
218 n ; will, 235 n, 268. 

Gibbon, Hester (the historian's grand- 
mother), 15. 

Gibbon, Hester (the historian's aunt), 
21, 23, 276. 

Gibbon, John (Mannorarius), 8. 

Gibbon, John (Bluemantle), 8 n, 12. 

Gibbon , J udith (the historian's mother), 
26, 36. 

Gibbon, Matthew, 11, 15. 

Gibbon, Robert (1618), 10 n, 11. 

Gibbon, Robert (1643), 11. 

Gibbon, Thomas (1596), xx n. 

Gibbon, Thomas (Dean of Carlisle), 

IS- 
Girondins, 260. 
Glaciers, 98. 

Gloucester, Duke of, 127 n. 
Godefroy, James, 182. 
Godfrey of Bouillon, 229 n. 
Goldoni, 7. 



352 



INDEX 



Goldsmith, Oliver, a notable man, 15 
n ; Gibbon's companion, 130 n, 
169 n ; Italy described, 165 n ; 
worked in a garret, 243 n ; Re- 
taliation, 282 ; Literary Club, 311. 

Gordon Riots, 208, 314. 

Gordon, Thomas, 44, 281. 

Graevius, 158. 

Grafton, Duke of, 213 n. 

Grammont, Comte de, xx n. 

Gratian, 87 n. 

Graves, Rev. Richard, 197 n. 

Gray, Thomas, Bolton, Duke of, 119 
n\ Cambridge, 57 n\ Mann, Sir 
Horace, 162 n ; Mont Cenis, 160 
n ; Naples, 164 n ; New Bath 
Guide, 174 71 ; Rome, 163 n ; 
Warburton, 180 n. 

Greek, 94. 

Green, Bishop, 326. 

Grenier, Madame, 332. 

Grew, Dr. Nehemiah, 13. 

Grigsby, — , 18 n. 

Grimm (de), Baron, 125 w, 296, 305. 

Grote, George, wasted time, 118 n ; 
Gibbon, 202 n, 336 ; neglect of 
health, 259 n. 

Grotius, 96, 121 n. 

Gudin de la Brenellerie, 199 «. 

Guicciardini, 296. 

Guichard (Quintus Icilius), 138. 

Guignes (de), 152, 307. 

Guize, Sir William, 169 n. 

Guizot, 336, 338. 

Habsburgh, Counts of, 4. 

Hai Ebn Yokhdan, 33. 

Hale, Sir Matthew, 9 n. 

Hall, Bishop Joseph, 284. 

Halley, Dr. Edmund, 302. 

Halliday, — , 339. 

Hamilton, Count Anthony, 133. 

Hamilton, Sir William, 163 n, 164. 

Hamilton, Lady, 164 n. 

Hannibal, 159. 

Hardinge, George, 324. 

Hardwicke, Lord Chancellor, 10 n. 

Hare, Francis, 278. 

Harley, Nathanael and Thomas, 273. 

Harrison, Colonel, 285. 

Harrison, — , 302. 

Harte, Rev. Walter, 82 n. 

Hartley, Mr.s. , 254. 

Harvey, Colonel, 300. 

Hastings, Warren, 228, 287, 334, 340. 

Hastings, Mrs., 277. 

Haussonville (d'), Viscount, 294. 

Hawes, — , 20 n. 



Hawke, Admiral, 136 n. 

Hawkins, Sir C^sar, 258. 

Hayley, William, 180, 230, 250, 317, 
335- 

Hearne, Thomas, 44, 61 n, 274-5, 280, 
282 n. 

Helvetius, 153, 308. 

Helvicus, Christophorus, 45, 283. 

Hfeault, President, 91 n. 

Henley, Robert, Earl of Northington, 
27. 

Henrietta Maria, 74. 

Henry IV. of France, 213 n. 

Henry V. , 144. 

Henry of Prussia, Prince, 221, 222, 330. 

Heraclius, 309. 

Heraldry, 12. 

Herbelot (d'), 45, 63 n. 

Herodotus, 184 n. 

Hervey, John, Lord, 25 «, 298. 

Hervey, Lady, 115, 151. 

Hervey, John Augustus, Lord, 252. 

Heyne, Professor, 180. 

Higgins, — , 201. 

Hilsea Barracks, 136. 

Historians, English, 122, 295. 

Hoadley, Archbishop, 275. 

Hoadley, Bishop Benjamin, 23, 274. 

Hoare, — , 44. 

Hobbes, Thomas, 12. 

Hogarth, William, 304. 

Holcroft, Sir H., 281. 

Holland, Charles, 304. 

Holland, Third Lord, Burke, 340 ; 
Hamilton,' Sir W. , 164 n ; Hol- 
land House, 252 n ; Horsley, 322 ; 
Naples, 276 ; North, Lord, 328. 

Holroyd, John Baker, see Sheffield, 
Earl of. 

Holroyd, Louisa, 255-6, 269. 

Holroyd, Maria Josepha (Lady Stanley 
of Alderley), Gibbon's love affairs, 
107 n, 342 ; — at Lausanne, 238 
n ; — conversation, 245 n ; — 
influence on Lord Sheffield, 268 
n ; — will, 269 ; Prince of Wales, 
256 n. 

Holroyd, Sarah Martha, 253 n, 268 n. 

Home, Sir Everard, 257 n. 

Home, Rev. John, 105 w, 207 n. 

Homer, 38, 141. 

Hondt (de), P. A. , 127. 

Honoria, 107 n. 

Hook, Dean, 275. 

Hooker, Sir J. D. , 51 n. 

Hooker, Richard, 49, 286. 

Hope, Professor, 54 n. 

Hopital (de 1'), 95. 



INDEX 



353 



Horace, Kurd's edition, 142 ; quota- 
tions from .4rs Poetica, 125, 191 ; 
Epistles, 2.dp ; Epodes, 185 ; Odes, 
179, 243 n ; Satires, 310. 

Home, Bishop George, 288. 

Horsley, Bishop Samuel, 203, 322. 

Horsman, Edward, 313. 

Hort, Sir John, 169 n. 

Hotel, 255 n. 

Hotham, Baron, 277. 

Howard, Sir Charles, 300. 

Howe, Earl, 261-2. 

Howell, Dr. William, 45, 2S2. 

Huet, Bishop, 7. 

Huguenots, 132. 

Hume, Sir Abraham, 216 n. 

Hume, David, American war, 314, 
333 ; Autobiography , 6 ; charac- 
ter, 316 ; death, 198 ; deists, 115 
n ; English hated, 196, 310 ; 
genius, 303 ; Gibbon's writings, 
172 n, 190, 195, 206 n, 233 n, 310 ; 
historians, 295 ; History of Eng- 
land, 122, 195 n, 296, 299 ; 
Home's Douglas, 105 n ; impar- 
tial, 146 ; Lyttelton's History, 174 
n ; old age, 244, 344 ; Ossian, 315 ; 
Paris, 152 71 ; Rousseau, 175 n ; 
style, 232, 297 ; transubstantiation, 
89 n ; Under-Secretary, 175 ; Wal- 
pole's Historic Doubts, 176 n ; 
Warburton, 178 n. 

Hunter, Dr., 200. 

Hurd, Bishop Richard, Delicacy of 
Friendship, 178 ; Dialogues, 146 ; 
enthusiasm, 22 n ; George IV. 's 
preceptor, 80 n ; Horace's Epistles, 
142 ; Priestley, 203, 319. 

Hurdis, James, 65 n, 289. 

Husbands, Rev. J., 284. 

Huskisson, William, 313. 

Hyde, Thomas, D.D., 61. 

Hypolitus, 278. 

ILLKN, Nanette de, 295. 

Image-worship, 69, j-j. 

Influence of the Crown, 119, 207, 

213 n. 
Innate ideas, 43. 
Innocent III., 71 ti. 
Inquisition, 71 71, 341. 
Institution, 31 ra. 
Inverary, 150. 
Ireland, 227, 314, 333. 
Italy, 165. 

Jackson, Cyril, D.D., 81 n. 
Jackson, Richard^ D^D,, 5,8 71, 

23 



Jacobites, 25. 
James I. , 74 «. 

James II., 13. 

James, John, 59 n, 62 «, 66 71, 284, 
288, 290, 292. 

Jekyll, Joseph, 250. 

Jerusalem, Temple of, 97. 

Jesuits, 126 71, 164 11. 

John, King, 71 «. 

Johnson, Samuel, arithmetic, 31 « ; 
army, 298 ; Behmen and Law, 22 
« ; beliefs, 78 n ; Benedictines, 
56 n ; biography, 6 ;? ; Bologna, 
165 n ; Boswell, 72 n ; boyhood, 
46 n ; brothers and sisters, 27 7i ; 
Burke, 134 n ; Burman, 278 ; 
character, i n ; common rooms, 
287 ; composition, 201 n ; conversa- 
tion, 220 n ; death of a wife, 36 71 ; 
declamations, 288 ; education, 342 ; 
fame, 242 ;« ; flattery, 242 71 ; 
garret, 243 n; genius, 143, 303; 
Giannone, 97 n ; Gibbon, 73 ;z, 
311, 312 ; Grotius,i2i 71 ; historians, 
295 ; Hume, 297 ; Inverary, 150 
71 ; lapidary inscriptions, 271 ti. \ 
Law's Serious Call, 275 ; lectures, 
54 n ; library, 219 n ; lucid inte7-- 
val, 34 n ; Lyttelton's History, 174 
n ; Mallet, 115, 305 ; Maty, 124 n ; 
memory, 98, 104 « ; merchants, 
273 ; new style, 26 « ; Newton, 
Bishop, 326-7 ; nonjurors, 274 ; 
North's ministry, 314, 328 ; Ossiaia, 
316 ; Oxford vacation, 62 n ; Paris, 
316 ; patronage, 243 7i ; Pom- 
ponius Mela, 159 n ; Popery, 
75 n ; Queen's library, 188 n ; 
Raynal, 306 ; read rarely, 336 ; 
Robertson, 297 ; Sarpi's History, 
282; Scott, Dr., 292; solitude, 
218 71 ; style, i « ; subordination, 
3 n ; Taylor & Ward, 30 n ; 
Thuanus, 6 71 ; Thurlow, 193 « ; 
travelling, 167 « ; universities 
abroad, 166 it ; Usher, Arch- 
bishop, 283 ; Voltaire and Hume, 
296; Warburton, 178 n; Young 
Pretender, 28 n. 

Johnstone, John, M.D., 320. 

JoUiffe, Hylton, 277. 

Jolliffe, Sir William, 277. 

Jones, Sir William, 62 n, 94 n, 289, 311. 

Jonson, Ben., 201 n. 

Jordan, C. E., 47 n, 56 n, 203 7i. 

Jortin, John, D.D., 178 n. 

Journal Br itannique, 124, 173. 

Journals, 134 n. 



354 



INDEX 



Joyner, William, 7 n. 
Julian, Emperor, 97, 209. 
Justinian, Emperor, 231. 
Juvenal, 2 n. 

Kerseboom, a. , 29 n. 
King, Dr. William, 285. 
Kirk, — , 210. 
Kirkby, Rev. John, 31. 
Knolles, Richard, 312; 

La Bruy^re, 23. 
La Fontaine, 12 ra, 35 11. 
Lamb, Charles, 15 n, 72 «, 314. 
Lamb, Mary, 72 n. 
Landor, W. S. , 336. 
Langer, — ,14. 
Languet de Gergy, 150 n. 
Lansdowne, Third Marquis of, 257 n. 
Lardner, Nathaniel, D.D. , 97 n, 183. 
Latin, 131. 

Laud, Archbishop, 75 n. 
Lauffer, — , 172. 

Lausanne, academy, 100 n, 222 ; 
boarding-house, 156 ; described, 
83, 246 ; French emigrants, 237 ; 
frequented, 98 7t, 103 11 ; Gibbon's 
love of it, no, 216, 338 ; — sum- 
mer-house, 331 ; lake, 338 ; la 
soci6t6 du printemps, 156 ; society, 
220. 
Law, William, 21-4, 120, 186, 273. 
Lawyers, 187 n. 
Leake, Major, 300. 
Le Clerc, 88, 98 n, 124, 301. 
Le Clerc de Septchenes, 232, 337. 
Legge, H. B., 119. 
Leibnitz, 132. 
Leo IV. , 163 n. 
Le Sueur, Jean, 86. 
Le Vade, 269. 
Lew, 172. 
Lewis IX., 71 n. 

Lewis XIV. , Convertisseur, 72 n ; 
persecutions, 78 ; Academy, 120 ; 
Versailles, 149. 
Lewis XV., Ill ?2. 

Lewis XVI., described by Gibbon, 
150 n, 212 ; gift to Prince Henry, 
330 ; translation of The Decline, 
337 ; death, 340. 
Lewis of Wirtemberg, Prince, 154. 
Lewis, a bookseller, 72. 
Life, chances of, 26, 239, 243, 343 ; — 

autumnal felicity, 244, 343. 
Limborch, 88. 
Lind, John, 205 n. 
Line, 43 n. 



Lipsius, 123. 

Liskeard, igi, 209, 313. 

Literary Club, 311. 

Littlebury, Isaac, 44, 280. 

Liverpool, First Earl of, 213 n. 

Livy, 100, 121. 

Lloyd, Robert, 287. 

Locke, John, Board of Trade, 322 ; 

Common-place Book, 98 ; innate 

ideas, 43 n ; Oxford, 49, 286 ; 

philosophy, 80, 88, 102 ; Treatise 

of government, 96. 
London, no public library, 188 n. 
Long, Dudley, 334. 
Longinus, 142. 
Lovibond, — , 64 n. 
Lowth, Bishop Robert, 49, 55, 179, 

285. 
Lucan, 151. 

Lucan, First Earl of, 255, 258, 264. 
Lucan, Countess of, 257, 264. 
Lucian, 237. 
Lucid interval, 34. 
Lyttelton, First Lord, 173. 

Mabillon, 158. 

Mably (de), Abbd, 199, 224 «, 317. 

Macaulay, Lord, Bentley and Person, 
325 ; Boswell's writings, 233 n ; 
Coalition Ministry, 328, 329 ; Gib- 
bon reported a Mahometan, 73 n ; 
— The Decline, 320; — poverty, 
329 ; historians, 296 ; Holland 
House, 252 n ; Magdalen College, 
56 n ; Milner, 319, 320 ; Procopius, 
281 ; Robertson, 297 ; Sarpi, 282 ; 
Warburton, 178 n. 

Macdonald, Chief Baron Archibald, 

65 71. 

Machiavel, 44, 281, 296. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 201 n, 321, 

332, 336- 

Macpherson, James, see Ossian. 

Maffei, 182. 

Magdalen College, 48, 50, 55-73. 283, 
288. 

Mahomet, 223 n, 312. 

Mallet, David, Elvira, 148, 304 ; Gib- 
bon, 82, 115, 122, 126, 131, 151, 
300 ; Life of Bacon, 145 ; — of 
Marlborough, 304. 

Mallet, Lucy, 115. 

Malmesbury, First Earl of, 289, 292. 

Malone, Edmond, 84 n, 218 n, 245 n, 
256 n. 

Malony, John Baptist, 291. 

Maltby, WilUam, 195 n. 

Mandeville, Bernard, M.D., 23, 275. 



INDEX 



355 



Manetho, 63. 

Mann, Sir Horace, 162. 

Mansfield, First Earl of, 297, 308, 

327- 

Margoliouth, Rev. Professor, 33 n. 

Marini^, 232 n, 337. 

Markham, Archbishop, 80, 279. 

Marlborough, First Duke of, 4, 304. 

Marlborough, Henrietta, Duchess of, 
4 n. 

Marolles (de), Michael, 7. 

Marsham, Sir John, 45, 63. 

Marvell, Andrew, 82 n. 

Masham, Lady, 286. 

Mason, Rev. William, 266. 

Matthews, Henry, 339. 

Maty, Matthew, M.D. , 124, 126, 134, 
151 n, 173. 

Maty, Paul Henry, 124. 

Maupertuis, 103 n. 

Maurice, Rev. F. D. , 275. 

Maynard, Sir John, 11 n. 

Mayor, Professor, 274. 

Mead, Richard, M.D., 203 n. 

Meard, Captain, 302. 

Medicis, House of, 147. 

Mimoires Littiraires de la Gra?ide 
Bretagne, 173. 

Misery (de), 156. 

Methodism, 197 n. 

Meuselius, 231. 

M6zeray, 44, 281. 

Meziriac, 93. 

Middleton, Lord Chancellor (Ireland), 
17 n. 

Middleton, Lord, 216 n. 

Middleton, Conyers, D.D., 67, 91, 321. 

Militia, 119, 135, 168, 301. 

Mill, John Stuart, 95 n, 336. 

Millar, Andrew, 243 n. 

Milman, Dean, 210 n, 292. 

Milner, Joseph, 203, 319. 

Milton, John, foreign travel, 166 n ; 
foundations of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, 51 n ; school divinity, 52 
n ; quotations from Lycidas, 74, 
242 n ; — Paradise Lost, 3 71, 102, 
192, 338. 

Minto, Countess of, 334. 

Mirabeau (de). Count, 222, 330. 

Mirabeau (de), Marquis, 331. 

Miracles, 68, 183. 

Moivre (de), Abraham, 141. 

Molesworth, Viscount, 17. 

Molesworth, — , 69 n. 

Monks, 52, 56 n, 57, 69. 

Monson, Sir William, 145. 

Montaigne, 6. 



Montesquieu, read by Gibbon, 96 ; 
Italy, 165, 166 ; laws against Po- 
pery, 291 ; compared with Gibbon, 
315 ; — with Mably, 317 ; tithes, 
340- 

Montfaucon, 158. 

Montolieu (de), Madame, 157 n, 342. 

Montrose, Marquis of, 144. 

Moore, Arthur, 18 n. 

More, Hannah, 242 «, 266 n, 276. 

Morfill, W. R., Ill n. 

Morley, John, 336. 

Mortimer, T. , 221 n. 

Motley, J. L. , 194 n. 

Moulton, — , 293. 

Muratori, 182. 

Murphy, Arthur, 312. 

Murray, John, 194 n, 315. 

Naples, 163. 

Napoleon Buonaparte, 221 n, 339, 344. 

National Debt, 3x4. 

Navigation Act, 226, 333. 

Necker, Jacques, minister of France, 
108, 198 ; marriage, 108, 294 ; 
war with England, 206 n ; Copet, 
219 n, 222 ; Treatise on the 
Finances, 221 ; letters, 332. 

Necker, Madame (Susan Curchod), 
engaged to Gibbon, io5, 293 ; 
married Necker, 108 ; Gibbon 
visits her, 198, 221, 247, 295 ; re- 
ceptions, 308. 

Nelson, Admiral Viscount, 164 n, 251 
n. 

Nestorius, 99 n. 

Newbery, Francis, 289, 292. 

Newman, Cardinal, 201 n. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, Chronology, 45, 63, 
106 n, 129 ; poetry, 304. 

Newton, Rev. John, 297. 

Newton, Bishop Thomas, 7, 211, 325. 

Nichol, Professor John, 291. 

Nichols, John, 8 n. 

Nicoll, Dr. John, 39, 279. 

Nivemois, Duke de, 151. 

Non-jurors, 21. 

Norfolk, Eleventh Duke of, 20 n. 

North, Lord, Second Earl of Guilford, 
Coalition with Fox, 214, 328 ; Gib- 
bon in his ministry, 207 ; — seat 
for Lymington, 212 ; — dedica- 
tion, 228 ; — visits him, 234 71 ; 
prime-minister, 192, 208 n, 212-3, 
314, 324, 327. 

North, Frederick, Fifth Earl of Guil- 
ford, 249. 

Notable, 15 71. 



356 



INDEX 



OcKLEY, Simon, 45, 282. 

Ogle, William, M.D. , 29 «. 

Olbach (d'). Baron, 153, 308. 

Old age, 243, 343. 

Oldys, William, 145. 

Olivet, J. T., 91, 125. 

Orators, 193 n, 228. 

Ormond, Duke of, 58 n.\ 

Osborne, Bernal, 313. 

Ossian, 197, 315. 

Ossory, Lord, 255. 

Ovid, 5 n. 

Oxford, Third Earl of, 273. 

Oxford, University of, antiquity, 51 ; 
climate, 42 71 ; commission of in- 
quiry, 53 ?i ; common rooms, 287 ; 
declamations, 59, 288 ; degrees, 
53 ; discipline, 47, 66 n, 289 ; 
examinations, 59 ; gentlemen- 
commoners, 48, 57, 289 ; Head- 
ington Hill, 61 ; Jacobites, 58, 
285 ; long vacation, 62 ; matric- 
ulations, 42 n ; monks, 57, 109 ; 
poor students, 284 ; professors, 
53, 81 ; reforms, 80 ; religious 
teaching, 66 ; riding school, 81 ; 
tutors' fees, 65 n ; White's Bamp- 
to?i Lectures, 320. 

Padua, 166. 

Paganism, 130, 183 n. 

Pagi, Father, 182. 

Palgrave, Rev. — , 169 n. 

Palladio, 166. 

Palping, 257. 

Pandects, 214. 

Parian marble, 64. 

Paris, 149-150, 152. 

Parliaments, 29 n. 

Parr, Rev. Samuel, LL.D. , Cam- 
bridge, 57 fi ; choice of colleges, 79 
n ; Gibbon at Oxford, 61 n, 73 «, 

81 « ; and War bur ton, 180 

n ; — resentments, 205 n ; — 
epitaph, 270 ; Home, Bishop, 288 ; 
Kurd's Essay, 178 n ; Prince of 
Wales, 80 n ; White's Bampton 
Lectures, 320. 

Parsons, Robert, 70 n. 

Pascal, 97. 

Patriots, 213. 

Pattison, Rev. Mark, Casaubon, 277; 
Gibbon' s learning, 46 w ; — tutors, 
61 71 ; Jesuit learning, 126 n ; 
Lowth's Prcelectiones, 55 n, 285 ; 
Scaliger, 141 7i. 

Pavilliard, Rev. — , 83, 94, 98, 109, 
154. 293. 



Pavilliard, Madame, 84 w, 117, 156. 

Payne, Sir Ralph, 264. 

Pearce, Bishop, 327. 

Pelham, Thomas, 251. 

Percy, Bishop Thomas, 311. 

Petavius, 45, 126 n, 283. 

Peter the Hermit, 273. 

Petersfield, 25, 276. 

Petrarch, 6. 

Petty, Sir William, 200 7i. 

Phasdrus, 35, 277. 

Phehps or Phillips, 10, \\ n. 

Philhmore, Sir Walter, 293. 

Philosophers, 198 n. 

Pindar, 108. 

Pinkerton, John, 235 71. 

Piozzi, Mrs. (Mrs. Thrale), 34 w, 36 «, 
149 71, 275. 

Pithou, Peter, 35, 278. 

Pitt, Colonel, 127. 

Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham. 
Militia Act, 135 ; Burke's eulogium, 
151 71 ; George HI.'s attack, 203 n j 
Wilkes, 301 ; Hume, 314. 

Pitt, Wilham (the younger), American 
war, 315, 332 ; Board of Trade, 
213 n, 322 ; Cambridge, 57 « ; 
Fox, 192 n, 331 ; Gibbon's ac- 
quaintance, 262 ; influence, 208 71 ; 
Ireland, 333 ; Necker's daughter, 
107 71 ; Nelson's victories, 251 71 ; 
Prime Minister, 329 ; prosperity of 
country, 227 71 ; Reform Bill, 277 ; 
Septennial Act, 19 7i ; sinecures, 
215 71 ; War Minister, 206 71. 

Pius n., 52 n.' 

Plautus, 106 n. 

Pliny, 6, 121, 159. 

Plutarch, 78. 

Pocock, Edward, D.D. , 33, 45, 61. 

Poggius, 182 71. 

Polier (de). Mile. , 269. 

Polignac (de), Cardinal, 79. 

Pomponius Mela, 159. 

Pope, Alexander, building, 236 ; 
character, i 71 ; church registers, 
9 ; critics, 242 n ; Crousaz, 87 ; 
English language, 310 ; foreign 
travel, 166 n ; Hearne, 280 ; 
Homer, 38 ; life of a wit, 178 » ; 
Molly Lepell, 116 n ; patriots, 

28 71. 

Por6e, Charles, 286. 

Porson, Richard, Gibbon's Decli7ie 

aTid Fall, 231, 336 ; Misc. 

Works, 195 71 ; — style, 190 « ; 

Hayley, 335 ; Kurd's Essay, 146 

71 ; Letters to T7-avis, 210, 325. 



INDEX 



357 



Porten, Catherine (the historian's 

aunt), 26 n, 30, 36-7, 39-41, 67, 

112, 240 n, 279. 
Porten, Charlotte, 236 n. 
Porten, James, 26 n, 37, 278. 
Porten, Judith, 26. 
Porten, Sir Stanier, 26 n, 268. 
Porter, Mrs. , 153 n. 
Portland, Duke of, 329. 
Posting, 252. 
Pouilly (de), in n. 
Preachers, 300. 
Prescott, W. H., 194 n. 
Preston, — , 254. 
Pretender, The Old, 13 n, 58 n. 
Pretender, The Young, 28. 
Price, Baron, 321. 
Prideaux, Dean Humphrey, 45, 223, 

283. 
Priestley, Joseph, 203, 319, 322. 
Primogeniture, 27. 
Prince, Daniel, 34 «, 63 fi. 
Prior, Matthew, 16, 281, 322. 
Procopius, 178 n, 214, 281. 
Professional life, 170. 
Puffendorf, 96. 
Pullein, Robert, 52 n. 
Pullen, Josiah, 61 n. 
Pulteney, William., Earl of Bath, 28 

«, 240 n. 
Putney, 20, 34, 185. 

Queen's College, Oxford, 65 n, 284, 

288, 289, 290. 
Qu^rard, 232 n, 237 • 
Quintilian, 92, 192 n. 

Racine, 105 «, 242 n. 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 144. 

Ramsay, Allan, 215 ??. 

Ramusius, 229. 

Randolph, Dr., 318. 

Rapin de Thoyras, 44, 281, 295. 

Raynal, Abb6, 152, 306. 

Read, General Meredith, 218 n, 265 », 

332- 

Redding, Cyrus, 339. 

Registers, Church, 9. 

Rennell, — , 325. 

Resnel, 87 n. 

R^tif de la Br^tonne, 226. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, Duke of Cum- 
berland, 127 n ; genius, 143, 303 ; 
Gibbon's portrait, 86 n, 331 ; — 
fi'iend, 130 n, i6g», 228 n- Gold- 
smith, 15 n ; Literary Club, 311. 

Richard I., 144. 

Ridley, Major, 169 n. 



Robertson, William, D.D. , his His- 
tories, 122, 134 n, 232, 296, 297, 
315 ; TAe Decline, 195, 209 n. 

Rockingham, Marquis of, 213 n, 214. 

Rogers, Samuel, 250 n, 332, 334. 

Roman Club, 169. 

Roman Empire, happy period, 239 n. 

Rome, 163, 167, 182 n, 183, 308. 

Rome, Church of, 73, 291. 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, 238 n, 306, 330. 

Rooke, Sir George, 11 n. 

Ross, Bishop John, 92. 

Round, J. H., s n. 

Rousseau, J. J. , 7 ; fables, 35 ; Mont- 
morency, 152; Hume, 175 n; 
Gibbon, 293 ; letters, 332. 

Routh, M. J., D.D., 61 n, 65 w, 81 n, 
283, 284, 289. 

Royal Society, 22 n. 

Russell, Earl, 335. 

Riistic, 37 n. 

Rutilius Numatianus, 159. 

Rylands, Mrs. John, 254 «. 

Sacheverell, Rev. Henry, D.D., 
274. 

Sade (de), 307. 

Saint Sulpice, 150. 

Sainte-Beuve, Bossuet, 70 n ; Gibbon 
at Oxford, a,% n\ — conversion, 
72 71, 89 ; — French, 91 n; — 
and nature, 117 n ; — and the 
Acadionie, 120 11 ; — indecency, 
231 71 ; — religion, 237 7t, 248 n, 
309 ; — in love, 293 ; — Essai, 
317 ; — learning, 336 ; — trans- 
lators, 338 ; — patriotism, 340 ; 
Huet, 7 71 ; Hume, 297. 

Saints, 69, 71 n, 309. 

Sallier, Abb6, iii n. 

Sallo, Denis de, 134 tu 

Salmasius, 96 ti. 

Salt, Samuel, 209 n, 314. 

Sanderson, Bishop Robert, 288. 

Sargeaunt, J., 279. 

Sarpi, Paolo (Father Paul), 6 n, 44, 
282, 296. 

Savage, Dr., 327. 

Savage, Richard, 2 n. 

Savanarola, 147. 

Saxe, Marshal, 269 «. 

Scaliger, J. J., 45, 141, 283. 

Scapula, 302. 

Schavedt, Margrave of, 169. 

Schilling, Diebold, 172. 

Scholl, Dr. , 240 n, 339. 

Schomberg, Count de, 269. 

Schools and schoolmasters, 34, 39, 47. 



358 



INDEX 



Schott, Andrew, 126 n. 

Scott, George Lewis, 141. 

Scott, Sir Walter, brothers and sisters, 
27 n ; school life, 46 n ; quotes 
Prior, 281 ; genius, 304. 

Scott, Sir William (Lord Stowell), 8q, 
289, 292. 

Seagar, Sir William, 10. 

Selden, John, 340. 

Septennial Act, 19. 

Servetus, 203, 321. 

S6very (de), family, 236. 

S6very (de), Wilhelm, 234, 269. 

S6very (de), of Mex, 86 n, 218 n, 269 n. 

Seward, Rev. Thomas, 326. 

Shaftesbury, Fourth Earl of, 118 n. 

Shakespeare, William, 105. 

Shefifield, John Baker Holroyd, first 
Earl of. Downing Street house, 
227 ; Gibbon abused, 340 ; — 
his adviser, 268 n ; — business 
affairs, 241 ; — executor, 268 ; — 
friend, 157, 189, 227 ; — grave, 
270 ; — illness and death, 258-67 ; 

— letters, 251-7, 259-61, 263 ; — 
library, 338 ; — and the Ministry, 
324 ; — ■ memoirs continued, 245 ; 

— retirement, 216 n, 220 «, 234 ; 

— seat for Lymington, 216 n ; — 
visitor at Lausanne, 246 ; marriages, 
248 n ; member for Coventry and 
Bristol, 226-7, 333 ; peerage, 189, 
226 ; political writings, 226, 332 ; 
Prince of Wales, 256 ?i. 

Sheffield, First Lady, 234, 239 n, 248, 

269, 342. 
Sheffield Place, 189. 
Shelburne, Earl of. First Marquis of 

Lansdowne, 209 n, 214-5, 3^^> 

328, 329, 331. 
Sheldon, Archbishop, 75 n. 
Shelley, Sir John, 20 n. 
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 228, 311, 

334- 
Sheridan, Thomas, D. D. , 32 n. 
Shorthand writers, 228. 
Siddons, Mrs., 153 «. 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 145. 
Sigebert, King, 51 n. 
Sigonius, 182. 
Simeon Stylites, 309. 
Sirmond, Father, 125. 
Slave trade, 333. 
Sloane, Sir Hans, M. D. , 30. 
Sloper, — , 18 n. 
Smelt, Leonard, 200 n. 
Smith, Adam, Balliol College, 54 n, 

62 n ; contempt, 46 n ; Decline 



and Fall, 206 n ; enthusiasm, 22 
n ; fines, 56 n ; Greek, 94 n ; 
Literary Club, 311 ; Mandeville, 
275 ; Navigation Act, 333 ; praise, 
242 71 ; Racine, 105 n ; Uni- 
versities, 51 n, 53 71, 54, 286 ; 
Versailles, 149 w, 150 n ; Wealth 
of Natiotis, 196 71, 312 ; young 
travellers, 167 n. 

Smith, Dr., 292. 

Smollett, Tobias, 197 n, •zi^'Ti '^• 

South, Robert, D.D. , 22 7i. 

South Sea Company, 16. 

Southey, Robert, Hayley the poet, 230 
n ; Oxford, 50 «, 62 «, 290 ; West- 
minster School, 279, 280. 

Spanheim, Ezechiel, 160. 

Spedalieri, Nicola, 210. 

Speed, John, 44, 281. 

Spelman, Edward, 44, 280. 

Spencer, Second Earl, 4, 251, 253-4, 
264. 

Spencer, Countess of, 251 w, 264. 

Spenser, Edmund, 4. 

Sprat, Bishop, 22 n. 

Stael, Madame de, 107 n, 332. 

Stanhope, Second Earl, 298. 

Stanhope, Philip, 313. 

Stanislaus, King, no «. 

Stawell, Lord, 116 n. 

Steele, Sir Richard, 17 n. 

Steevens, George, 311. 

Ste Palaye (de), 152, 307. 

Stephen, Sir James, 290. 

Sterling, John,, 27 5. 

Sterne, Laurence, 80 ;z, 231 n. 

Stewart, Dugald, 102 n, 190 n. 

Stewart, Sir Simeon, 119. 

St. Germains, First Earl of, 21 n. 

Stonor, Monsignore, 210. 

Storer, Anthony, 206 ;z. 

Stormont, Lord (second Earl of Man^^ 
field), 205. 

Strabo, 142, 159. 

Strahan, William, 194, *zg. 

Strauch, yEgidius, 45, 283. 

Style, I, 189. 

Suard, j. B. A., 134 71, 152. 

Subordination, 238 n. 

Sunderland, Earl of, 4 7i. 

Superstition, 78, 197. 

Swift, Jonathan, October Club, 25 n ; 
death, 36 n ; style, 122 ; Temple's 
Works, 132 n ; oaths of abjuration, 
274 ; army, 298 ; not read, 336. 

Swiss, History of the Liberty of the, 
147, 171. 

Switzerland, 98, 341. 



INDEX 



359 



Sylva, Madame de, 252, 265. 
Symonds, J. A., 165 n. 

Tacitus, 266. 

Tanucci, 276. 

Taylor, Rev. Henry, 203, 318. 

Taylor, John (" Chevalier "), 30. 

Temple, Lord, 301. 

Temple, Sir William, 6, 132. 

Tennyson, Alfred, 29 7«, 242 n, 313. 

Terrick, Bishop Richard, 180 n. 

Thackeray, W. M. , 5 n. 

Theatres, 22, 114. 

Theodora, Empress, 178 n, 231. 

Theodoret, 309. 

Theodosian Code, 182. 

Theology, Books of, 120 n. 

Thirty-nine articles, 66, 75, 290. 

Thomson, James, 243 n. 

Three Heavenly Witnesses, 210, 325. 

Thuanus (De Thou), 6. 278. 

Thurlow, Lord Chancellor, 192, 205, 

322. 
Tibullus, 163 «. 
Tillemont, 182, 183 n, 232. 
Tillotson, Archbishop, 89 «. 
Tissot, Dr. , 221. 
Titus, Emperor, 144. 
Tories, 25, 135. 

Townshend, First Marquis, 329. 
Townshend, Second Viscount, 273. 
Transubstantiation, 71, 89. 
Travel, Foreign, 148, i66. 
Tiavis, Archdeacon George, 209, 210, 

325- 
Traytorrens (de), 95. 
Trevelyan, Sir George, 329. 
Trinity College, Oxford, 289. 
Triumphs, 309. 
Tschudi, Giles, 172. 
Turin, 161. 
Tuscany, 252 n. 
Tuscany, Marquis of, 242 n. 

Universal History, 43. 
Universities, 51, 286. 
Unwell, 255 71. 
Usher, Archbishop, 45, 283. 

Vaud, 98 n, 238, 341. 
Venice, 19, 166. 
Vergennes (de), 337. 
Vernacular, 130. 
Versailles, 149. 
Vertot, 90, 147. 
Vicat, — , 95. 
Villaret, 306. 
Villemain, 191 n. 



Vincent, Dr., 279. 

Viner, Charles, 81, 292. 

Virgil, Gibbon's Dissertation, 106 n, 
130 ; Critical observations, 177, 
310 ; quotations from Eclogues, 
113 n ; — Georgics, 133 ; — 
^neid, 161, 211, 242 n. 

Voltaire, Age of Lewis XIV., 63, 
103 n ; ancient philosophers, 123 
n ; Anglo?nanie, 305 ; atheism, 
78 n ; Bayle, 77 n, 79 n\ Ber- 
noulli, 59 n ; Bolingbroke, 133 ; 
Congreve, 151 n ; Crousaz & Pope, 
88 }t ; De la Bl^terie, 97 n ; De 
Guignes, 307 ; English dedication, 
133 ; English historians, 295-96 ; 
Ferney, 155 ; Frederick the Great, 
103 ; Giannone, 97 n ; Gibbon, 
102, 315 ; Grotius, 96 n ; historio- 
graphe, 307 ; Huet, 7 n ; Lausanne, 
103 ; Leibnitz, 132 n ; Limborch, 
88 71 ; letters, 332 ; loan, 154 71; 
Mably, 317 ; nobility and trade, 
273 ; old age, 244, 344 ; old super- 
stitions, 237 ; Olivet, 91 n ; Paris, 
150 n ; P^tau, 283 ; style, 125 n ; 
theatre, 104, 155 ; universities, 
286 ; Versailles, 149 n. 

Wainfleet, Bishop, 55. 

Waldgrave, Thomas, D.D., 60, 75 «, 
288. 

Walpole, Horace (Fourth Earl of 
Orford), acting, 153 71 ; A7iglo- 
manie, 305 ; authors, 153 «, 308 ; 
Bath Guide, 174 7t ; Benedict 
XIV. , 164 n ; Biographia Britan- 
7iica, 6 71 ; Bologna School, 165 71; 
Bute, Lord, 119 n ; character, 7 « ; 
Chesterfield, Lord, 308 ; Cibber, 
7 n ; coronation, 137 n ; corre- 
spondence, 162 n ; Egremont, 
Lord, 250 71 ; Ferdinand IV., 164 
«; Geoffrin, 308; Gibbon, 29 «, 151, 
201 n, 206 n, 211 n, 276, 297, 314, 
315, 321, 324, 327, 331, 335, ; 
Hay ley, 335 ; Helv^tius, 308 ; 
Historic Doubts, 146 «, 176 ; 
Hume, 296, 297 ; Hunter's lec- 
tures, 200 n ; influence, 208 n ; 
Italy, 163 n ; Jacobites, 28 n ; 
King's speech, 29 n ; Macpherson, 
316 ; Middleton, 91 n ; Mirabeau, 
330 ; Mont Cenis, 160 n ; Newton, 
Bishop, 327 ; Northington, Lord, 
27 n ; Paris, 148 n, 149 n, 152 n ; 
Raynal, 306 ; Turin, 161 71 ; war 
with France, 126 n ; Whiston, 7 n. 



160 



INDEX 



Walpole, Sir Robert (First Earl of Or- 
ford), South Sea Bubble, i8 it, 
26 ; opposition, 25, 28 ; misquotes 
Horace, 240 n. 

Walpole, — , 255. 

War, 315. 

Warburton, Bishop William, contro- 
versy with Lowth, 50, 285 ; Bur- 
gersdicius, 80 n ; Divine Legation, 
i.'77-'i>\, 310. 

Ward, Joshua, 30. 

Warton, Joseph, D.D. , 231, 311. 

Warton, Rev. Thomas, 50 n, 287, 311. 

Warton (a painter), 209. 

Watson, Bishop Richard, 200 11, 202, 
2og, 318. 

Watteville (de), 106 n. 

Watts, Isaac, D.D. , 43 n. 

Webster, Lady (Lady Holland), 252. 

Weddal, William, 169 n. 

Wedderburne, Alexander ( Lord Lough- 
borough and Earl of Rosslyn), 
Solicitor-General, 193 ; Chief Jus- 
tice, 206 ; Lord Chancellor, 261 ; 
Gibbon's friend, 215 n, 323 ; North 
and Fox, 328. 

Wells, Dr. Edward, 45, 283. 

Wenman, Lord, 58 n. 

Wesley, Rev. John, 65 n. 

Wesseling, Peter, 159. 

West, Richard, 280. 

West, Thomas, D.D., 288. 

Westbury, First Lord, 290, 293. 

Westminster School, 38, 278. 

Weymouth, Lord (First Marquis of 
Bath), 205. 



Wheatley, Henry B. , 82 n. 

Whetnalls, 10, n n. 

Whicher, Rev. J., 277. 

Whiston, William, 7, 63 «, 66 n, 68 n, 
274, 321. 

Whitaker, Rev. John, 312, 320. 

White, Joseph, D.D. , 203-4, 320. 

Whiteway, Mrs. , 36 n. 

Wilberforce, William, Gibbon, 324 ■ 
Horsley, 322 ; Pitt, 208 « ; Prac- 
tical Christianity, 194 n ; slave 
trade, 334. 

Wilkes, John, 301, 311. 

William HI., 11 n, 15, 286. 

Williams, George, 291. 

Wilson, Rev. H. A. , 288. 

Wilton, 150. 

Winchester, Dr. Thomas, 64, 79, 284. ■ 

Windham, Right Hon. William, 261, 
322. 

Wirtemberg, Duke, 154. 

Wirtemberg, Prince Lewis of, 154. 

Wolf, F. A., 46 «, 61 71. 

Wood, Anthony, 7. 

Wooddeson, Dr., 34. 

Worsley, Sir Richard, 176, 216 n. 

Worsley, Sir Thomas, 136, t68, 399, 
300. 

Xenophon, 92, 184, 

York, Charles, 10 n. 
York, Ehike of, 127, 326. 
Young, Edward, D.C.L., 2 «. 

ZUINGLIUS, 99.' 



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